Winter 2025

Odysseus, 2025
Acrylic on Canvas
48 x 48 in

December 18th, 2025

Well, we’re just a few days short of the day on which we not only have the least amount of sunlight here in the Northern Hemisphere, but also when the days begin to get longer. I don’t want to use that as a pure metaphor, but my sense is that while we seem to have been living through a lengthy period of things, institutions and people cracking up, there is some light coming over the horizon and we are headed toward better times. I could cite some evidence but all you have to do is look deeper into a newspaper than the front page (to read just the front page is to be convinced there’s little hope for humanity or the planet). Whether it’s the tsunami of investment in, and deployment of, clean energy (despite the Trump administration’s attempt to slow that trend in the United States), the rapid economic growth in large parts of Africa, the real progress being made in generating usable fusion energy, the saving of certain species via the commitments of governments that are hellbent on supporting their tourist industries, the rapid uptake and consequent productivity gains occurring via specialized applications of Artificial Intelligence (while the goal of these tech firms for “superintelligence” is finally being scrutinized by Congress as it realizes some strong regulation is going to be necessary), or simply the acts of kindness that are not always noticed that occur every day in every place around the world, there is a lot of good news to spread around if only we were inclined to pay it as much attention as we pay all the problems that confront us. There will always be misery and sadness, but there will always be joy as well. The days start to get longer and some of the burden of winter starts to lift.

I’ve had an incredibly busy time this quarter of the year. It started with my traveling to Paris to participate in a wonderful group show during Paris Basel week. Having a chance to see the main fair in the Grand Palais (and no roof leaks this year!) was a wonderful opportunity, and then in addition my wife Lila and I took in the incredible Gerhard Richter retrospective at the beautiful Fondation Louis Vuitton (a masterful building designed by Frank Gehry, who unfortunately died last week but left quite a wonderful legacy of “architecture as sculpture”). Upon my return I jumped immediately into getting a solo show of about 30 pieces of my work prepared for hanging in a wonderful space in West Chelsea. The show lasted a bit over two weeks and was seen by a lot of people, including over 175 people on the opening night. If you were one of them I thank you very much for coming. And then immediately after that I headed down to Miami for Art Basel Miami where I was very pleased to be shown at the Untitled fair, which is located each year in a fantastic tent right on Miami Beach’s South Beach. It seemed like the entire art community came through the tent (you have to imagine a tent that is longer than a city block and can fit almost 200 gallery booths within it) and it was a wonderful chance to catch up with people I’d not seen in a while. I’m very pleased to note that as a result of the three shows I have had three paintings acquired by museums and now will have work in six museums. 

It turns out I am not the only “creative” in our family. Not only do we have a few grandchildren producing very interesting art in classes private and public, but my son Ben’s movie production company Further Adventures (a partnership with a good childhood friend Steve Beckman) has two films that have been accepted and will be shown at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. It’s awfully hard to get any film into the festival, so getting two selected is quite the feather in the cap of this young company. Ben has produced a number of wonderful movies in the past, but this will be the first splash made by this new production company and I could not be happier for the two partners. I don’t want to ignore my two wonderful daughters, one of whom has been working in the women’s health field for many years and making a real difference and the other of whom is entering the counseling field with a specialty in addiction counseling, both of whom also have been doing an incredible job at the toughest and most important one of all: a mother. I’m proud of what I’ve been able to do with my art, but not nearly as much so as I am of having had at least something to do with producing such a wonderful trio of people. Their decency, creativity, empathy, resilience, thoughtfulness and just plain kindness gives me immense joy and I can only hope they will have as full a life as have I.

I’ll end this note with a thought about art. The art “market” is generally weak right now and for many artists making a living is a real struggle. Even many mid-career artists who had thrived up until 2024 are scrambling to figure out how they can continue when their earnings are way down. The market is beginning to look a lot like the “Superstar Economy” that is increasingly prevalent in many fields: the people at the top rake in a huge percentage of the gains to be made and the leavings for everyone else keep diminishing. This is not at all healthy. Nor is the increasingly common decision to eliminate art and music classes from public education and substitute more STEM classes and other “more useful” subjects. But “art” in all its forms is a critical part of being human. Stand in front of a painting and really look. Not glance. Look. That painting can allow you to leap in both time and space, allows you to connect not only to the artist who created it but also to the incredible mix of associations and intimations that led him/her to put that paint on canvas or linen or board. It can connect you to the swirl of emotions that must have been “in the air” at the time the work was created. It can connect you to yourself and the greater universe. It is the sum total of the experience to that date that the artist had when he/she picked up that brush or whatever instrument was used to produce what you see before you. And that is the reason that the use of AI to produce “artwork” should never be considered as particularly valuable. The machine that creates work “in the style of Picasso” or “abstraction using purple and red” has no human experience and cannot put that ineffable something that makes us human, that allows us a sense of the mystery of the universe, that allows us to speak across time and distance and put our “essence” into a painting, sculpture, film, symphony, or other form of art, into whatever facsimile of art we are told is as good as the real thing. It is not the real thing, and it will never be as good because it does not contain the essence of our humanity in it.

I hope you all enjoy whatever holidays you are celebrating and let us hope for a wonderful 2026.

Regards,

A.