Proposal Two

If I played guitar for eight hours a day, seven days a week for thirty years, always pushing my craft - would I be a great guitar player? Would I need to be told this, or would I know? 

Could I do that, if I wasn’t deeply inspired to begin with?

I have never opted to crank out what sells. Every drawing, pastel or painting is as honest and sincere as I can make it be - and I’ve sold over a thousand of them. I think they are among the best and safest investments on earth.

I’m in lots of major collections. Allan Stone bought fourteen of my paintings the first time he saw them. He was the biggest dealer in the business at the time.

Between The President and his company, Morgan Stanley owns about thirty paintings. Barclays Capitol recently bought five major pieces. They hang together in a lobby of their new building in Manhattan. I can think of three other private collectors who own twenty or more.

I’m a really, really good painter. Find anyone who will tell you that I am not.

My thought, my projects, my website-as-art-medium, okay, there is a lot there to consider.

But what else can you expect from a visionary artist who is trying to engage the most important issues of his day, in this complicated world in which we live? Is it wrong to think deeply?

We now know that suicide bombers are happy to blow up entire schools full of children. How are we going to protect them all?

As unpopular as provocative thought might currently be in places like Cincinnati - maybe there are creative solutions, that are much more pleasant than the alternatives.

The artist can only do his or her part. It takes more than me, and we all have so much to gain. I could talk about this for hours. Nobody would lose.

Inspired, creative people can actually be kind of nice to have around. Some cities work very hard to attract them. I want to work with Cincinnati.

This proposal is about 9/11.

9/11 is too big of a thing to put under the auspices of any one gallery. It must be shown in the largest, the broadest venue available.

Don’t you think so?

In Cincinnati, at this time, I believe this to be the CAC or The Art Museum.

Enclosed are two writings from my website: The World Trade Centers - Day One and Day Two.

I’d like to do a short series of paintings, taken from the photographs I shot on Day Two (mentioned in the writing).

I’d like to post those two writings, alongside those paintings.

I’d like to do an equal number of writings and paintings, representing life in NYC, as I perceive it to be today, in light of what happened then.

The show would be entitled: “9/11 - Now and Then”

ESSAYS: The World Trade Center: Day One.  The World Trade Center: Day Two.

Tim Folzenlogen
August 13, 2004