2/16/96

                                   “Never let your daughters marry an artist.  
                                   You will bring her to sorrow if you do…” 1897 – M.O.Gréard.⁴

                                    Seth says my boys are sex Gods.

        Considering all the anguish I’m experiencing, I must be driving those around me crazy.   I realized, early in my life, that I was an artist.   In a strange analytical way, I also knew I would not be able to raise a family on an artist’s income.   Most of the time (and throughout most of recorded history) artists have not been prosperous examples.   I remember exactly the moment I decided to put art aside in deference to raising a family.   (Although, one may ‘put art aside’ for a while, you cannot stop being an artist.   Your being produces art, whether you sit quietly or rant in a drunken rave.   The difference between acting as an artist and ignoring your art is that one tries to quell neurosis and the other produces nothing but neurosis.   Sitting on my kitchen table was a small sculpture composted of cardboard tubes.   The kitchen was decorated as if it were a street in front of a Parisian café.   The table was round with a red and white checked cloth.   The small refrigerator was painted to appear to be a bus; Metro signs, café window signs, a pharmacy, and others completed the scene.

        My sons, now all approaching adulthood, seem to have inherited my enjoyment and stamina for sexual activity.   I believe the libido is not only the biologic creative force but the aesthetic creative force as well.   In this I am in good company; Nabokov said, “My creativity is a little girl.”
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4.            Frida Kahlo whispered this same sentiment into the left ear of Estela de Bassagoda (one of Diego Rivera’s students.)  “…Forget he is your boyfriend.   If you marry him you will be wretched.” (This is a paraphrased translation; Not a direct quotation.)

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