Hi, my name is Chris and I’m a purveyor.
I sometimes think the wisest man in my life is John Baldessari.
I’ve had a pretty incredible day, by all accounts, from morning till finish. My job was predictably chaotic for a Monday, so the deep sleep I had last night worked wonders. Unusually early morning chaos brought an early job release, just in time to walk out the front door to a rainbow crowning South of Market. There was a heavy drizzle, something I failed to predict this sunny morning when I opted to bike to work. I didn’t even have to question my perception in that moment: I knew I was biking home.
Incredibly windy, I met the resistance with joy as I petaled forcefully ahead. My recent stress relief, an alternative to masturbation, has been westerly dusk bike rides while the wind blows in from the ocean. As I made the right into the final segment of the wiggle, hail came from the sky.
Every possible type of meteorological influence one could have imaginably crammed into a single day was the reality of San Francisco, today.
Once in the shelter of my home and studio, the evening continued fortuitously through. The apex of the evening was the realization of perseverance. Of the short-term, the long-term, and the periods I hadn’t yet given myself credit for. This message came through when, toying with a set of three panels I have been subconsciously calculating day-by-day for almost two years, I finally solved the puzzle of it.
Color is my reward.
“The object is the idea.”
John Baldessari, as I have repeated many times before, has affected me dearly since I was a teenager, and he is one of a few artists I credit as having inflicting me with the desire to be an artist. “Solving Each Problem As It Arises” (1967) is in my top five works of all time, and growing up in Connecticut I spent many moments viewing it. The text of the work became indelible to me and I found myself reciting it regularly in my twenties, particularly when I was a teetotaler.
Solving problems. That’s what artists do. Some of us do it beautifully, and some of us are messy. We use tangibles and solvents, we avoid objects altogether. But, ultimately, we are purveyors of ideas.

