From the essay "How to Proceed in the Arts,"
written in 1952 by Larry Rivers and Frank O'Hara:
Part I. A Detailed Study of the Creative Act
written in 1952 by Larry Rivers and Frank O'Hara:
Part I. A Detailed Study of the Creative Act
1. Empty yourself of everything.
2. Think of far away things.
3. It is 12:00. Pick up the adult and throw it out of bed. Work should be done at your leisure, you know, only when there is nothing else to do. If anyone is in bed, with you, they should be told to leave. You cannot work with someone there.
4. If you are the type of person that thinks in words -- Paint!!
5. Think of a big color -- who cares if people call you Rothko. Release your childhood. Release it.
6. Do you hear them say painting is action? We say painting is the timid appraisal of yourself by lions.
7. They say your walls should look no different than your work, but that is only a feeble prediction of your future…
8. They say painting is action. We say, remember your enemies and nurse the smallest insult. Introduce yourself as Delacroix. When you leave, give them your wet crayons. Be ready to admit that jealousy moves you more than art. They say action is painting. Well, it isn’t, and we all know abstract expressionism has moved to the suburbs.
9. If you are interested in schools, choose a school of painting that is interested in you…
10. Don't just paint. Be an all around successful man like Baudelaire.
11. Remember to despise your teachers, or for that matter anyone who tells you anything straight from the shoulder. This is very important.
For instance, by now you should have decided we are a complete waste of time. Easterners, Communists, and Jews. This will help you with your life, and we say "life before art." All other positions have drowned in the boring swamp of dedication. No one paints because they choose to.
12. If there is no older painter you admire, paint twice as much yourself and soon you will be him.
13. Youth wants to burn the museums. We are in them- now what? Better destroy the odors of the zoo. How can we paint the
elephants and the hippopotamuses? How are we to fill the large empty canvas at the end of the large empty loft? You do have a loft, don’t you man?
14. Is it the beauty of the ugly that haunts the young painter? Does formality encompass the roaring citadels of the imagination? Aren’t we sick of sincerity? We tell you, stitch and draw- fornicate and hate it. We’re telling you to begin. Begin! Begin anywhere. Perhaps somewhere in the throat of your loud asshole of a mother? O.K.? How about some red-orange globs mashed into your teacher’s daily and unbearable condensation. Try something that pricks the air out of a few popular semantic balloons; groping, essence, pure painting, flat, catalyst, crumb, and how do you feel about titles like “Innscape,” “Norway Nights and Suburbs,” “No. 188, 1959,” “Hey Mama Baby,” “Mondula,” or “Still Life with a Nose”? Even if it is a small painting, say six feet by nine feet, it is a start. If it is only as big as a postage stamp, call it a collage- but begin.
15. In attempting a black painting, know that truth is beauty, but shit is shit.
16. In attempting a figure painting, consider that no amount of distortion will make a painting seem more relaxed. Others must be convinced before we even recognize ourselves. At the beginning, identity is a dream. At the end, it is a nightmare.
17. Don’t be nervous. All we painters hate women; unless we hate men.
18. Hate animals. Painting is through with them.
19. When involved with abstractions, refrain, as much as possible, from personal symbolism, unless your point is gossip.... everyone knows size counts.
20. When asked about the old master, be sure to include your theories of culture change, and how the existence of a work of art is only a small part of man’s imagination. The Greeks colored their statues, the Spaniards slaughtered their bulls, the Germans invented hasenpfeffer. We dream, and act impatient hoping for fame without labor, admiration without a contract, …
