Matt, see the fall 2009 issue of Aperture for a nice feature on William Eggleston’s drawings. In it, he recalls: “I drove all the way to Arkansas to see Merce [Cunningham] once. It was marvelous. Then after, people were asking him questions: ‘Was the dance supposed to be about this, or about that?’ And he simply said: ‘No, it’s not supposed to be anything but what it is.’ People ask me what my work is about. I also just want them to have their own experience.”

Lucy, Tom Nozkowski is still a New York painter. He carried Gotham in his brain and his guts when he moved upstate, as surely as Pollock and Krasner did when they relocated to Springs. The ‘five boroughs’ is a state of mind. See Jed Perl’s excellent New Art City for a beautifully sustained meditation on NY as a place to be an artist.

Greg, I guess I see painterly abstraction as a regional specialty, like surfing in California and barbecue in Kansas City. Of course, some people try and surf off Coney Island, and some of our barbecue is not bad. I’m just saying, it’s not the same.

So because someone does not live in the 5 boroughs there work crosses a line and becomes less “authentic”

Guston and Nozkowski and a great many other well known and unknown artists doing every genre of art live wherever they live, people gotta live. Not living in the 5 boroughs does not make you any less of a painter, it does not mean your work is inauthentic, it just means you have more money for good quality paint and your kids have a yard if thats what they need and some of the money you save on property tax goes toward trips to the wonderful city to see great shows.

and please don’t diss Europe

“despite its roots in Old Europe”

I am so glad we make the real thing here in the USA and have taken over painterly abstraction from those inauthentic foreigners. I’m as tearful as John Boehner just thinking about it.