Please visit our new site basqism.com Art Post Basquiat

Being an artist is a scary thing to declare; it's much easier being a plumber or engineer or doctor. Not in doing. but in telling. Because when you say "I'm a plumber", everyone knows what you do. Same with doctor, engineer or garbage man. Most know why you do it, probably how much you make and where they stand with you.
But when you say " I am an artist ", peoples minds go mad, they twirl and shake and tilt listlessly. You can see the wonder in the air escaping their wordless lips. or on the ends of their hair. You can watch their confused portraits and the way they shake trying to stand.
Still, the artist prevails.
Not all of us can say we are artists, forming something from nothing, sometimes WITH nothing. The artists exhibited here are being artists. And we are proud to tell the world of them and show their work.

Stephen Judges

Howard Tommy Mitchell

Academicians may be startled to find their canvases in close proximity to outsiders and to discover those outsiders are extremely intelligent craftsmen and not such outlaws and barbarians after all. And outsiders may be more or less amazed to see that when hung side by side with works they might call respectable mediocrity, their own works seem less original than they had supposed
Duncan Phillips, February 1931 The American Magazine of Art

If ever I can do anything for you, be of some use to you, know that I am at your disposal. We are rather far apart, and we have perhaps different views on some things; nevertheless, there may come an hour, there may come a day, when we may be of service to one another. Vincent Van Gogh, in letter to his brother Theo.

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