Santa Monica Studio

We have finished the construction on the Santa Monica studio, and seeing the effort, some people have asked me if the project takes away from my work.

The question seems to point at a more definite understanding of my work than the one I have. To me, “the work” is always shifting and always feeding on that shift. The question also underestimates the value of this particular “detour.” It would be hard for me to make a categorical distinction between the process that generates a painting and the process that decides I should hang the deer head in the studio’s library. In each gesture I am trying to sort myself in relation to it and to find something refuge-like in the final assembly. Space and furniture, for instance, are something quite distinct from the position one takes towards painting only if the purpose itself is quite distinct. For me, the studio is an embodiment of the same point of view that generates the artwork.

The artwork and the studio have many (though not all) of the same aims and provide me with similar comfort and discomfort, so what is the meaning of lost time or interruption of the work? I gain energy by using it.