WHITE ON WHITE

This is a painting by Robert Rauschenberg. I'm not sure if the work has a title, but there are three panels all painted white. I'm listening to Mozart. I'm writing. I'm no longer hungover. I finished today's writing on my latest work--Mas O Menos.

I hope to explore everything that I know about myself. I will explore others too, but I won't dissect them as I stretch myself out on the operating table and perform an autopsy on myself.

I wish when I thought of certain people--loved ones--a blinding white would fill my mind. It is a state of thought that revels in emptiness. When we have squeezed all the confusing colors out of our lives, we are at our most peaceful.

I believe that painters and photographers have it much easier than writers or musicians. It's all instinctual. You don't have to think. You take paint and splash it on a canvas or you click a button.

Those who are realists have a tougher task before them because they are attempting to capture reality as accurately as possible, but our modern painters dive into their subconscious and when they come to the surface they grab a brush and paint a canvas one color or take a bucket of paint and dump it on the canvas.

Afterwards, when the work has taken a form in their imaginations, they can take their brushes and add a dab of red here and a spot of blue there.

Writing requires fervent thinking even when the artist is simply brainstorming. Typing words onto a blank screen is more painstaking than splashing paint on a canvas.

Don't think for a second that I believe one form is more important than another, but three panels painted white would probably have more impact if each panel included a K and the piece could be called KKK.

I'm joking. I'm merely entertaining myself at the moment. I'm tired of the endless summer in these tropical climes.

White is a beautiful concept. I associate it with Zen, contemplation and placidity. But white cannot stay white for long. The world is too dirty. There is so much filth in our existences. White is too weak to withstand the dark forces.

In the same manner that you would disinter a body many years after the coffin's occupant's death, you would find nothing but bones, ironically enough, all white. If there were a white painting buried in the next plot, you would unearth it only to discover that it was all black.