Knox Martin Tells Me a Story About Robert Rauschenberg

I have to start by saying that anything I am going to write about Knox Martin is going to be a love-fest! Every moment I can spend with the master artist is a special moment that I cherish. When he speaks, I listen. He told me a great story about sharing his studio with fellow artist Robert Rauschenberg. Knox said he had a work that Rauschenberg had given him that wasn't signed. He asked Bob for a note authenticating it, and Bob told him no!

Knox likes to tell that Rauschenberg had the nerve to go around saying he studied with (Josef) Albers at Black Mountain College, and Albers couldn't stand the son-of-a-bitch! I let him use my studio for two years, and he won't sign a damn note! Knox said when he asked Rauschenberg why he wouldn't send the note, he replied, "because you're better than me!"  I adore him!

Beat Memories: The Photographs of Allen Ginsberg

National Gallery of Art | Ginsberg photographed his friends and captured snapshots of his life. His friends just happened to be Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady, and William Burroughs. This collection of photographs chronicles the lives at the epicenter of the Beat Generation. These guys were hot. They had a hopped-up, creative exuberance that bounce off these prints. Ginsberg captured in these photos, a feeling that a bunch of guys—up for anything—are enjoying life, experimenting with mind-altering substances, pondering their existence, and pushing the boundaries of their conventional time. Very cool.

Kerouac was asked by the editors of a dictionary to define the Beat Generation and described himself and his friends as a group whose members express "a relaxation of social and sexual tensions and espouse anti-regimentation, mystic disaffiliation and material-simplicity values, supposedly as a result of Cold War disillusionment." There is no reason to expand on that.

Why Do I Want to Write About Art?

I love to look at art, read about art, talk about art, watch and participate in the process of art, and write about it. I love an artist. I love being around artists and their vibrating, creative energy. I am going to use this vehicle to fling all that interest onto this canvas—my blog.