Something's Coming My Way

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In 2003, I relocated from New York City to Las Vegas, Nevada. I'd been living there for almost 10 years. My address was a single-occupancy hotel on the upper West Side, for all but the first few weeks after arriving, and from which I scratched-out a living as an office "admin assistant." I made good use of my time in New York, seeing art exhibits at all the museums, and as many galleries as I could hit on a walking tour. I'm adept at the use of basic hand tools, nails, screws, and light lumber-which (believe it or not) could all be obtained in New York City at that time, and with which I provisioned my apartment for painting. My technique was limited to odorless, water-based acrylics, which would not attract the curiosity of the neighbors and management, such as would be by oil paints and turpentine. It was of course my intention to send slides of my work to the commercial art galleries, but I just never did anything I felt confident enough about to show. When I arrived in New York I had a romantic notion of West Side Story graffiti gang war. The spontaneity of graffiti appealed to me, the urgency, to be done on canvas-not on subway walls-to be hung and enjoyed. That sort of thing was never seen in the galleries, with the possible exception of Basquiat, whose graffiti paintings were passé even then. Expressionism in art was over. The misfit, artist-loner was another cliché, excluded from more nuanced concepts in art. Besides, I could not help but notice that rebellion had been commodified. Everyone looked rebellious, but confined to cages, like at a zoo or a pet store. When everyone is different, everyone is the same. Also, I'm not ashamed to admit that I liked very much of what I saw. That was truly subversive, subversive of my individuality, because too much admiration is tinged with envy. It was at that point, like a alcoholic in rehab, that I realized I needed a change. My internship with the Grand Bazaar of art that is New York City had come to an end. It had reached the saturation point. I had to leave before I did something I might regret, and as hard as it was to leave the city I loved, it was at least not an act of desperation. A friend suggested Las Vegas. I took a chance on the city of second chances. 


Paintings by Brian Higgins can be viewed at https://sites.google.com/view/artistbrianhiggins/home

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