Look, we need a celebratory enthusiasm to counterbalance other kinds of critical artmaking. It's more constructive.

Also, it's great to be excited about democracy. Read my book.

Where are you all?

And I say to any man or woman, Let your sould stand cool and composed before a million universes.

Desiring the New Day, and Everything It Has To Offer

Wake up, everyone. Where are you?

The sun is up and the day has begun.

Where are you?

Don't you have anything you want to do today, because the day has begun. You could have started by now. But instead you are sleeping? What are you doing? What are you doing? Where are you this morning, and why aren't you here? Where else should you possibly be? The day has begun, and it time for you to begin. The sun is up, greet it. Greet the morning. Bring yourself.

And shouldn't I have started earlier? The day began hours ago.


Greeting the New Day Dawning.

Shouldn't we have started hours ago? The sun doesn't wait. No-one else is waiting.

Don't we wish the day had started. Is there anyone else out there.


The day has started, where are you?

Keep Encouraged

I chose not to do my reading or sit in my studio today. Instead, I went out and enjoyed the beautiful new weather. The rain has gone. I went up to the RIMAC arena and played soccer in the morning. We won. We ran. It was sunny, and thirsty work. I saw the ocean this morning. I walked through the canyons.

Hello World

I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loafe* and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe* at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.

My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from this soil, this air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not until death.

Creeds and schools in abeyance,
Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,
I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,
Nature without check with original energy.


This is my first entry in my new blog. I, Walt Whitman, great american poet, have begun my first year in the MFA program in Visual Arts at UC San Diego, and I am going to use this blog to record my thoughts and reflections on everything that I learn here. I hope you enjoy it.

* Observing one of my fellow first year students and new friend, Robert, I wonder if he has learned this lesson. In his critique the other night with Barbara Kruger's class, it was emphasized that he is very concerned with working hard, and spending lots of time on work. Robert, I think you ought to spend some more time loafing around. In a Zen and the Art of Archery sort of way, the surest way to hit your target may be to stop trying so hard to hit it. Don't be so willfull. There is no guarantee that more time working, or even harder, more concerted effort, is going to make for better art work. Think on that, Robert. And can I please have my pipe back?