Spring 2025

Palette Painting III, 2025
Acrylic on Canvas
30 x 30 in

March 25th, 2025

Well, we got through a pretty tough winter here in the Northeastern United States. First there was the cold and ice that reminded me of the bitter cold winters I remember from when I was growing up in this region, then there was the unfolding recognition that the Mayor of New York City is a pretty brazen crook, and finally the realization that our newly elected President actually means to act on a series of ideas that range from probably necessary to literally insane.

But spring always follows winter, reminds us that the Earth is not concerned with our petty grievances, and points in the direction of renewal and hope. So many of our myths, so much of our religious belief, and so much of our faith is based on this change of seasons that repeats the same cycle each year and, speaking for myself, brings immense comfort.

This year has been a busy one for me so far. I showed work at the Felix Art Fair in Los Angeles (which proceeded despite the horrific fires because the art community felt it very important to do so to express support for the city and the many artists who lost their homes, studios and work as the Altadena fire raged through that unique LA neighborhood); we finalized the acquisition of two of my paintings by museums; the Bronx Museum has chosen to honor me at their annual gala on April 7 and at the same time auction one of my paintings to help them raise funds for their beautiful expansion designed by Marvel Architects; I helped the Brooklyn Museum acquire a wonderful Sarah Sze piece for their permanent collection; the first winner of the annual Stillman Prize (a juried purchase of a piece by an emerging artist to be displayed by the NYC Culture Club at their space in the World Trade Center) was selected and I had the pleasure of visiting him at his studio; I’ve done a series of “home-and-home” studio visits with a number of excellent artists; I have been working diligently in my studio as we aim for a solo show in New York City this fall; and the great art publisher Skira (Milan-based and the first publishers of Picasso’s work in book form) has commenced doing a monograph on me and my work through early 2025.

A few of you have written interesting notes to me and I very much enjoy getting those. The essence of putting art out in the world is communicating, so ALL forms of communication are welcome. It is almost certain that art came before language. The cave paintings that have been discovered in various parts of the world have in almost every case been found to have been applied in parts of those caves with superior acoustics. Linguistic theorists have speculated that the cave paintings allowed symbolic thought as they told the story of a hunt or other accomplishment, and that a combination of gestures and sounds eventually evolved into elementary language from a kind of call-and-response between the “artist” who had painted the wall and his or her audience. Anyway, I like to think that I put art out in the world and that it might result in a “call-and-response” from some of you as we explore some topic or other.

As many of you know, I am a big sports fan, so this time of year is usually fun for me. College basketball has its March Madness (my brackets are already done for after just the first set of games!), the NBA and NHL seasons are moving toward the playoffs as various teams strive to get in while others try to pace themselves in order to enter those playoffs in decent health, spring training is almost over as the baseball season heads toward its start (this year it already started with a pair of games in Japan between the Dodgers and the Cubs, the Dodgers being the new Darth Vader of MLB thanks to their enormous payroll and accumulation of stars), and speculation about the NFL draft has become deafening. But my main interest is now directed toward the club lacrosse team for under-12-year-olds on which my granddaughter plays. Lacrosse is a great game. It was started by the Native Tribes in Canada as a substitute for war. When there was a dispute over land the tribes would send their “teams” of braves out with sticks that had a net attached at the end, use a rock as a substitute for a ball, and have at each other in what was called a “Little War” in an effort to score a goal at the far end of the territory that was in dispute. A number of the participants would die as a result of being battered by heavy wooden sticks or hit in the head by the rock, but the bloodshed was kept to a minimum rather than have a full-fledged battle in which many dozens would be killed or maimed. My granddaughter loves the game, as did every one of my three children, all of whom were good enough to play in college. I’m a strong believer that kids learn a lot of essential lessons playing a team sport, so I’m delighted she’s passionate about playing. 

I’m going to end this note by segueing from sports to Artificial Intelligence. Specifically, AI as it relates to art. For the most part, even the best AI models cannot yet create particularly good art, and a trained eye can almost always spot AI-based work. But the models are getting better and inevitably will get to where they can produce some really fine paintings, sculptures, music, poems, etc. At that point is there still a place for the human artist? I certainly hope so, and that hope is premised on this: each work of art created by an artist comes from a place that even the artist cannot fully define. Really good art comes out of some combination of experience, technique, instinct and some mix of “intention” and “discovery”. An honest artist will tell you that regardless of where he or she starts, as the piece is being created it takes on a life of its own and almost demands that it go in the direction that makes for a result that came through the artist rather than from him/her. It’s a unique and privileged experience and it really is what should attract someone to the piece: a connection with that which drove the artist to create what is in front of you. AI will never be able to reproduce that intense human connection and that mysterious artistic process. But it will be easy and cheap, and unfortunately that frequently drives out the difficult and expensive. It will be up to others, not the artists themselves, to resist that tendency. 

I hope you have a wonderful spring and that we run across each other in the foreseeable future. As always, feel free to write to me and I will attempt to answer any correspondence.

Regards,

Abbott Stillman