As far as painting is concerned...

I'm actively avoiding the subject.  I'm procrastinating.  I'm suffering an existential crisis.  But I did go to the Guggenheim when I was in New York and saw the Black and White Picasso show.   And that's something.

Have you been?  I felt like I was standing naked before God.  

It's one thing to say to yourself you'll never quite match up to Picasso.  I'm okay with that (although I would like to paint a chapel someday).  But this whole Close thing has sent me into an existential spiral.

Are you spiraling up or down?

Which way to you think?

This is Matisse's chapel.  Seems like everybody's got one but me.

I'm comfortable saying I'll never quite match up to Matisse either, just for the record.  

Does it always have to be a competition with you?

Yes.  That's how we keep score.

I like how there are no chairs.  

This, by the way, is Picasso's chapel...

No chairs here either.

And look how, at the very end of the room, he's throwing his boy Matisse a big juicy bone.

It's called the Chapel of Peace in Vallauris.  This from a man who could really paint about war.  You say something like that and everybody, of course, thinks of Guernica.  But this was at the Guggenheim...

And what an amazing thing to see in person.