FLATLINED SINCE 1977

  I've started the year on an artfag roll. New work in the church yard (much to Shewho's dismay), a return to HWS and FB respectively, which gives me a false sense of audience and some new pieces (and meat) from my deer butchering. All in all it's shaping up to be a good start to the new year. I have two new resolutions: "Say what you mean. Don't hold back." I know a lot of you think, what with my constant spewing of opinion and fb posts- "How could this idiot be holding back?" Well let me clue you in. I've been self-editing forever. Get ready.
   If I had a cell phone I'd be on Instagram. But who needs a cell phone? So in the meantime facebook will have to do. In my over a year absence from the site I've realized it's not quite as viable as it used to be. Even though I had two strikes against me for posting titties, it was not the looming third strike that got me off the fb tip. It was my own pathetic pathology of hoping for "likes" and "comments" and tailoring posts that would garner the most positive responses. I know. It was pathetic. Realizing this, I jumped. It took me a week or two to be comfortable with the move off. But then I was OK. More work went on the lawn. I put together a book. I did a lecture and an interview. Time went by.
   Then one night before Xmas, drunk as a skunk, I went back to the fb family. It was kinda nice. Old SF and LES crew came out to greet my return. The party had gone on without me, but I was missed. This prompted me to approach fb with a new attitude: post two or three times a day and don't give a shit. So far so good. Then, today, I found myself involved in an old issue that really doesn't affect me in the least- the resale of work at auction. An artist I like in NYC, Andrew Castrucci, had posted a piece on a proposed Artist Royalties Act. This issue goes back to Robert Rauschenberg's $900 painting being sold at auction by the Sculls' in 1973 for a boatload of $ and he not getting a piece. Who wouldn't want a piece of future auction sales? Me. I started commenting.
   In the real world I have sold so few pieces of art it's barely worth mentioning. Terms like early, mid, late career do not apply. I've considered my work mature since 1977. One career, one practice, or whatever the new term is. From '77 to now it's been consistent. I may never hear an auctioneer's gavel. So be it. So I am against any government intervention into my shit, that may or may not yield a hypothetical percentage on "future auction sales". There has been no roller coaster ride for me. If it wasn't for the interweb, only a handful of people would know I exist. Even with it, I'm pretty obscure. And that's the way i like it. Being an artist in 2015 is still the best identity anyone could ask for. Town officials up your ass for that stuffed rabbit sitting on a toilet in your yard? FBI inquiring as to your importing bull semen to Cuba? FB hitting you with one more strike? Fuck 'em all! You are an artist. No regulation required.