Jack Balas, 2024; TO THIS DAY (#2537); India ink on paper, 30x22 inches

Text:

TO THIS DAY I can go to my shows, even in New York, in Chelsea, in the center of the art world, and STILL come home with the same old questions: What Can I Be Painting? What Should I Be Painting? Why Should I Paint? Who Could Care? And I still hear the voices: Don't Be Painting This. This is Not Correct. This is Too Male. This is Too Toxic. This is Too Beautiful. And then even the gay curators, afraid of themselves, who act like it's all the third rail.
UNTIL I walk into the gym and here they are, these Stem Cells, eager, working, wanting, waiting - they don't know it- for their close-up. They Are The Muse. (Where does it come from? How did I find it?) And for me, and also for those who never could, or still TO THIS DAY cannot, I go back to work. (This is our voice.)