the hermit

Artists are the modern day alchemists. They are the lonely hermetic souls tweaking away in a darkened lab trying to turn paint into gold. I have caught a lot of flack from old friends because I have become a severe recluse. (I even caught some today.) I am happiest alone and alone with my work and art. Da Vinci once said if you hang out with one person you are half your self and if you hang out with two people you are a third of yourself. I dont understand the cafe artists, the social butterflies, the artists in art school who hung out in groups and smoked and looked like artists. I was always too busy working and thinking about art. In art school I wouldn't walk down the street with more than one person and to this day it makes me nervous to hang out with groups. I have lost many fair weather friends and backstabbers as time has passed--- I dont think a hell of a lot of the human race but I have a small handful of people I would give my left hand for. As a child a spent 90% of my time alone wandering around a hundred acre farm and that formed me as a person. In the end its all about the work and the passion and the paint.