It was bitter cold on Christmas Eve. The paintings in my room seemed to withdraw into their own dark worlds. My mattress was warm enough though. I had moved the hotplate from the corner, closer to me. Looking out the window, this one particular morning, I felt a sense of peace. Though frozen outside, the street was lovely, charming. Maybe it was the trees. Of all the shit-stained alleyways I could be stuck in, I’m always happy to see the trees through my window. 

I haven’t touched my brushes for nearly a week. Something keeps pulling me away. I haven’t felt any inspiration for several days, which happens every so often, but never for this long. When I find myself staring into the white void waiting for something to strike, waiting for something to come my way, something that I can start with, and nothing comes, nothing at all, I know that before long I’ll end up leaving the studio empty handed, like a some hunter returning a week later after a failed hunt, I am left hungrier, and ever more frustrated than before. Maybe I find that I’m pointlessly pushing paint across my canvas. Circles. Endlessly. Maybe if I change the color something will happen. Maybe something will speak to me. Maybe if I mix Cobalt with Crimson one more time I’ll create something worthwhile. I see nothing. I feel nothing. No shapes, no lines, no figures coming through. As if I truly am completely alone in my room. Maybe I am. Often I can work a canvas, directionless, and eventually start finding my way. Meeting each new character, each new shade and color. In those moments everything makes sense. We speak the same language. Other times I end up trapped in a cycle with no way out. It is all-consuming and the feeling that maybe, just maybe, the next few moments will be magical are what keep me there. But I know they won’t be. They will be exactly the same. I can tell almost right away. I trap myself before the process even begins. Like some naive young hopeful walking into a Vegas casino and making his way over to a shining slot machine. Calling to him. Or when, hours later, he is still standing there telling himself earnestly again and again that it really could be the next one. It might have been the next one but instead I walked away. I’ll never know. Maybe it is just luck. Sometimes I walk in and clean the place up. Sometimes the place cleans the floor with my beaten corpse. But I know what to expect. I can tell almost right away, I can feel the difference. It’s quite distinct. So if I can, before I even pick up a brush, I just walk. 

Leave the studio. My room. I walk for hours. Sometimes from early morning until nightfall. Stopping somewhere quiet to sit and observe people go about their lives. By the water maybe. Outside one of the many parks in this city. A bus stop on Madison Avenue. Although they aren’t, the days feel long. They seem to hang like some object floating through zero gravity, absolutely still, in the thin, crisp air. On and on. Cold and dry. If only there was some hint of snow. That would make all of this worth it. After sunset I walk downtown. Early in the week the streets are generally quiet. Looking down 6th Avenue the street lights change from red to green. The dim yellow glow from the rows of lamp posts lining a street here, or the darkness between long lines of parked cars and trash bags, rats digging around for scraps, cluttering a street there. Each one, it’s own personality. Dark and gloomy. Comforting. I feel unknown and at home here. On weekends the young people come out. The students. The children of wealthy New York business people. They all come out to swarm the avenues. Standing outside bars and food trucks. Waiting in line, eager to pay some large fee just to get into a place. Somewhere they’ll get shit faced on vodka cranberry or tequila soda, and make out with their best friends, just to see what it’s like, just because, and just to have something to talk about the following morning after posting all the photos.