advice to young artists

1) have rich parents. If you do not have rich parents you will suffer like a stuck pig or a turkey in November. If you survive ten years of impoverished hell then you will feel like a champion and a Vietnam vet and most people wont be able to relate to you and will not understand why you mumble so much. But suffering builds great character and your art will be grand and it will not suck and be cheesy and weak and you will lose the dreaded patina of looking like a lightweight.

2) if you are not obsessed with art to the very marrow of your bones to the point of where it matters more than food or love then you should go drive a milk truck. Art is is not for dabbling

3) Have good heros. Your heroes should be the old masters and if they are not then you are wasting paint. Musicians should look to the blues and the roots and you should look to the old masters, if you look to the dreaded modernistos then you are a fool and a fool and his art are soon parted.

4) Drink a lot of alcohol. Artist should be seasoned and marinated like a pickle. If you are an artists who likes to sit and drink lattees then you are a poser. Go drink whiskey in ugly dive bars and learn about the underbelly of life.

5) Have a bunch of failed and broken relations and get over them and realize that pain comes and goes and art is a constant, it is your polestar through the choppy seas of life.

6) Dont cheese yourself out. Do not paint peoples pets. If you cheese out your soul you can never get it out of your system and your art will suffer till the end of time. Beware your Faustian deal, my friend.

7) Be prepared to be alone. You will spend 95 % of your time alone and it will suck but you will learn about yourself and most people dont have a fig of a clue as to who they are in this world.

8) be in Page Six. If you get in page six it is almost like you made it somewhere. I have had famous people ask me how I get in page six all the time but I do not have an answer why. I dont mind being a press whore and you shouldnt either. If no one knows your name then you are doing something wrong. You must be in the papers and in the press and media is a fascinating phenom of our time and all great artists are "of their time"