Jack Balas, 2025
THIS PAINTING DOES NOT STOP (#2775)
India ink & acrylic on 2 paper panels, 24 x 36 inches overall

Text:
This story does not stop. My self-portrait as Aaron (Ha). No really, Wes's birthday. 2 a.m., fan in the window, 40's out and a winter blanket, dinner at the Mexican restaurant at the corner surrounded by red bricks and noise (traffic) in the late sun. Why is Aaron naked? you ask. Ha. Why not? A guy at a far table covered with tatts, 20? 15? Have his parents seen them? (How could they not?)
Three little boys at a near table anesthetized by computers with cartoons open in front of them just past their enchiladas. Noise, motorcycles. A long New Yorker piece by Ian Frazier (excellent writer) about New York's Canal Street and Clifford Holland, the engineer who dug the Holland Tunnel. The litany of things people come in to buy at the store he lives above. That kid should take his clothes off, show us those tattoos, each a story. Frazier's story is 35 years old last month, literally half my lifetime ago. Why am I telling you all this? How deep do you go for a story? Which clothes do you remove? This painting does not stop