Jasper Johns

"He [Jasper Johns] and I were each others first serious critics. Actually he was the first painter I ever shared ideas with, or had discussions with about painting. No, not the first. Cy Twombly was the first. But Cy and I were not critical. I did my work and he did his. Cys direction was always so personal that you could only discuss it after the fact. But Jasper and I literally traded ideas. He would say, Ive got a terrific idea for you and then Id have to find one for him. [remark on his early cooperative relation with Jasper Johns, to his biographer w:Calvin Tomkins"

"Sometimes I see it and then paint it. Other times I paint it and then see it. Both are impure situations, and I prefer neither. At every point in nature there is something to see. My work contains similar possibilities for the changing focus of the eye."

"I made the flags and targets to open mens eyes.. ..[they] were both things - which are seen and not looked at - examined."

"As you [Tono] has written, people say that my works are neutral. But if you paint something, it is something, and it cannot be neutral. Being neutral is a mere expression of a form of intention."

"The Watchman falls "into" the trap of looking. The "spy" is a different person.. ..The spy must be ready to "move", must be aware of his entrances and exits. The watchman leaves his job & takes away no information. The spy must remember & must remember himself & his remembering. The spy designs himself to be overlooked. The watchman "serves" as a warning. Will the spy & the watchman ever meet? In a painting named SPY, will he be present? The spy stations himself to observe the watchman. If the spy is a foreign object, why is the eye not irritated? Is he invisible? When the spy irritates, we try to remove him. "Not spying, just looking" – Watchman. Somewhere here, there is the question of "seeing clearly". Seeing what? According to what?"

"The relationship between the object & the event. Can they 2 be separated? Is one a detail of the other? What is the meeting? Air?"

"Every artist feels alone and isolated. Friends are very important in terms of all sorts of definitions of oneself. They tell you what you are and what they are aside from the intellectual aspects."

"Bend color names which should be made of neon or copper tubing. Place an object on a surface – trace the object – then bend the object – leaving some part of it attached."

"To be an artist you have to give up everything, including the desire to be a good artist."

"Put a lot of paint & a wooden ball or other object on a board. Push to the other end of the board. Use this in a painting. – ruler on board."

"What is meant by "the representation of space"? What distinguishes one representation from another? Does this mean "how does one see that one thing is not another thing?" What constitutes a change of focus?.. .What about "another way of establishing (?) "thingness"? "Something" can be either one thing or another (without turning the rabbit on its side).."

"It was my sensual excessiveness that jarred him [Jasper Johns]. He was always an intellectual. He read a lot, he wrote poetry – he would read w:Hart Cranes poems to me, which I loved but didnt have the patience to read myself – and he was often critical of things like my grammar. But you dont let a thing like that bother you if you have only two or three real friends."