Now I will tell you other things. I think. It is nascent and therefore uncertain, all new projects are like that, they stand on their skinny foal legs, and we do not know—even they do not know!—whether they will bolt forward and gulp down the world, things of beauty and grace, or fall to their knees, unviable, stuffing their nose with dirt. That is how it is, it is one or the other. Fly or fall—no other outcome but that. I know this because I am trailing both, in multitudes. I am trailing a multitude of corpses of outcomes. I am trailing a multitude of graceful outcomes. I am trailing these multitudes because I have spent the larger portion of my life, which is to say the entire portion of my life (with the exception of the first six years, in which I was learning the basics) creating things, putting words together, mostly, to make stories, and now of course using paint to do the same. But it is more than that. I also use those stories I tell to make more stories. But that is inaccurate. I detest inaccuracies! But perhaps it is not inaccurate so much as mushy. Let me present you with something firmer, it reads as follows: I take the act of storytelling (or, if you prefer, creation) and turn it into more storytelling. Here is where I am doing that. I am doing it elsewhere too, I am like a cat in heat, but here is where you are finding it. Previously, between my last “On Painting” paragraph and this paragraph, I did it in a book, a physical book, an A4 Moleskin sketchbook, to be precise, which I handwrote and illustrated (badly, I am not an illustrator!), it was a discipline I forced on myself, I am not diminished by having done so, we are rarely diminished by discipline. Lately, I have been wrestling the little black bearcub of another book, but it is not going well. For one thing, I injured myself making the first one, this is true, not false. I forgot to move, you see, while I was writing it, I forgot to not sit on my leg for hours at a time when I was writing it, and I am no longer, evidently, elastic, and now I walk with a limp. And so I think I’ll let the bearcub rest. I, however, cannot rest, for there is too much to tell, every moment carries a thousand jewels, each with their facets who love light beyond reason. I am sure that if this foal takes flight, if it is nourished well and grows strong, it will also be on painting. Of course it will. What in God’s name else do I talk about? And now I will tell you something about painting! It is by way of telling you why I am starting another “blog”—surely there is a better word for this! This horrible word, blog, it is a word that defiles the sacred act of putting words together in order to make sense of God and to recommend ourselves to God!—and once I have told you why I am doing this, then, well, I will have fulfilled my duty to you, for now. Lately—this is a lately-ness stretching back months, I will say it is a lately-ness that is equal to four months, I will just assign that arbitrary number to lately-ness—I have been completely in the ring with figuration, we have been dancing around each other lightly, taking our light jabs, we have been light on our feet, sometimes we have hung upon each other tiredly, but there has not been much struggle, there have been no gut punches or knockdowns, I have not been pulling at my hair asking why and what for, I have not been driving for something I cannot see, I have only been painting, and only painting hardly merits mention (which does not explain why I spent so much disfiguring time with the first bearcub—I will tell you only that that bearcub absorbed a lot of writing about art-making when it was going exceptionally well, it was a happy thing—no, it wasn’t! I was sleepless and driven mad by my obsessions! but I was making good work I was entirely happy with, even stunned by, and that is what I mean by “a happy thing.” But I have decided…I don’t really know that I’ve decided anything, except that I am doing this again. I am doing it because…because I must!