Endangered Desert Humeleon 2023. Acrylic on loose canvas, 16 x 18"

“I have no money, no resources, no hopes. I am the happiest man alive.”

—Henry Miller from Tropic of Cancer

I want to write a bit today about creative poverty. You might be aware that I am at the beginning of a year long project to reduce my expenses so I can figuratively refrain from paying federal (and state) income tax. I also want to express to my partner (as well as the world at large) that over-consumption is a quicker path to death than balancing on the tight rope of a hand-to-mouth existence. I want to share my experience because I believe it’s working better than I had imagined it would. Already doors are opening and it’s just the start of the third week. Sparks of contentment are lighting inside me. A revisiting of youth, those eager heart feelings, the jump and jitter in the present that expects every tomorrow to come even better than yesterday.

The thriving with less frees me from the clutches of a violent and stupid empire, lifting a massive guilt-and-blame weight from my chest. The killers are doing what they do best, and should retain their freedom to do so. For without evil there can be no good. Empire will have it’s day in the sun, taking labor from the goodness of people, forming it into machine greed and steel smite to scorch the earth. Creative poverty laughs in the face of Caesar who cannot get blood from a stone. It flourishes in the life-giving realm, the opposite end on the good-evil spectrum. There is everything else in the middle—they call it “the gray area” where passion fizzles to flat, and life is a chore to get through finally.

Wow, nearly Biblical phrasing. See how super high I am?

I want to reiterate. This is not a moral experiment. It is an artist’s game. I need to feel deeply without despair in order to express, to give. No persuasion necessary, from me. I’ve had plenty of years to fail successfully all alone. It’s the only way for the universe to win the eternal “I am” battle, sensed by these eyes, ears, fingers, toes and nose. For final victory on a mystic field, nobody need join my no one.

Wow, nearly Upanishads. See how super high I am?

In just two weeks I have had visions of how my present will inform the future. I look at my little world. Miraculously, what I took for granted is granting me another view with fresh eyes, revisited meaning, brighter sun, wetter rain. Grocery shopping is newly exciting, as is cooking creative, nutritious meals from ingredients no longer bland like the tractor trailer haul of yesterday. I revive sad vegetables and moisten dusty grains. I honor the factory chicken, although apparently going through the same motions—roast, eat, strip, stock, soup, and feed the cat what’s left. New eyes. New (revisited?) tingle in the fingertips. No one, including myself, will notice unsurpassed awakening. Quite possibly I’m projecting. What else can an expressionist do? Right or wrong, truth or lie, if I feel lighter (highly energized) steps in the kitchen and studio, on my walks, etc., suffice it to say that some new brightness now shines on the drag drab day of my old age. I breathe deeply through the nose. I’m telling you the god’s honest truth—I dream again like I did as a child.

Last week I rode in a car two times, and paid for both trips. I bought a canvas, and painted a birthday portrait for my daughter. I used ingredients in house to make her a Saturday brunch—cabbage quiche, black bean soup and triple sec soaked genoise cake. Beforehand I walked to the stores for milk and cheese. I drank inherited bourbon when I needed a buzz and hosted a Stuckist mini-exhibition on Friday evening (you’re invited to the next twelve). I made cookies and cabbage tart. Guests brought food to share, without my asking. The week was eclectic and same as it ever was. I ascended high to heaven and low to hell, then middled out on some manageable limbo state between easy peace and wicked rage. As usual, whatever came at me I soaked up like a sponge, though with new hope in poverty (no matter how delusional) I was able to shrug off all negativity as just another overdose of modern boredom.

Everything was doing what everything does best while blocking my path to enlightenment. My solution to present and future human-made quagmires:

Double down with bright or bad idea and dive right in.

Two thoughts from philosopher Eric Fromm:

The whole life of the individual is nothing but the process of giving birth to himself; indeed, we should be fully born when we die — although it is the tragic fate of most individuals to die before they are born.

What does one person give to another? He gives of himself, of the most precious he has, he gives of his life. This does not necessarily mean that he sacrifices his life for the other – but that he gives him of that which is alive in him; he gives him of his joy, of his interest, of his understanding, of his knowledge, of his humor, of his sadness — of all expressions and manifestations of that which is alive in him. In thus giving of his life, he enriches the other person, he enhances the other’s sense of aliveness by enhancing his own sense of aliveness. He does not give in order to receive; giving is in itself exquisite joy. But in giving he cannot help bringing something to life in the other person, and this which is brought to life reflects back to him.

I hope the same is true for you. Let us have it. Express it all!

Meanwhile, I’ll keep on my latest project. It’s working for me. I have lost nothing and gained a new or perhaps revisited outlook. Still too early to tell. This morning I made pancakes with real maple syrup. Same as it ever was, and everything must change.

This week’s total expenses from roof over the head to sugar drop cookies: $209.10. I look forward to saving enough money to take Rose out on Valentine’s Day.

What a life!