“Love the art in yourself and not yourself in the art."S. Konstantin

DEMONS

IN HER YOUNGER DAYS: from my journals, 20 October 1982

The last little story…the very last. Three very drunks had partied at a club called AMPM—trés chic & (so it follows) boring—two of the revelers are artists—one of the artist’s a disgruntled; the two painters had been to a gallery opening earlier that day—So, the seeds of revolution were sown in the especially unhappy artist when she saw, once again, un-truths, half-truths and no-truths in the soulless stills hanging on the gallery walls. The party that evening was to celebrate the maker of these empty canvases.

Three very drunks—danced & partied—indulged in champagne and cognac—picked up another painter for a while along the way. “Are you gay?” asks the artist currently showing in a group at Cordier & Ekstrom of the particularly disgruntled artist. “No,” she says, “but I appreciate your asking.” So for a little while the evening went merrily, madly along—Now four very drunks stopped somewhere in the lower bowels of the city for excesses of artistic conversation. The disgruntled one was full of questions for this new artist—he was married to a painter? How could they do it? Monogamous, as well? How could they do it? The disgruntled one tried drunkenly to describe her work—her paintings as stories—a search for great loves. She thought he understood.

The hour was late—this artist drifted home & left the original three to perform break-neck maneuvers on a fantastical construction on the middle of a drunken nowhere. In & out of conversational meanderings—wandered the spectre of Schnabel—the poison of Boone.

Then, suddenly they were in front of the cave of these demons—cleverly disguised as an ‘in-spot’ called Odeon’s—w/a sweeping gesture of bravado the less disgruntled heaved an enormous whack of flem onto these hallowed windows. Busboys out in a flash to clear away the awful stuff. “Not enough” thinks the very drunk & disgruntled painter—& so convincing she leads the others inside. The drunks became children, stealing tips, insulting vacant, stupid stories & conspiring for a grand exit—a statement.

And so the three drunk-a-teers veered towards the exit—turned and lobbed their glass full of Rémy over the bar and into the mirror. The obligatory panic ensued—police were called and miraculously took the side of the very drunks. The thugs masquerading as waiters were ordered inside—the crowd dispersed & in the silent, early morning hours the very drunk & disgruntled painter told the police she would do it again—for art—and under the protective wing of art she flew home.