Try as I may, I cannot remember where I have recently read that all that artists are really after are the three Fs: fame, fortune, and, as the same source puts it daintily, sexual favors. If my memory is not playing tricks with me, this pronouncement has come from an artist, most likely someone who has enjoyed all the three Fs to the hilt. It is meant either as a startling revelation of an insider or as a beguiling confession of someone who has managed to escape from the treacherous clutches of art. It is but a truism, though, for the entire humanity is after the three Fs. All that is revealed or confessed here is that art is not different from other human activities. What is startling and beguiling in the pronouncement about the three Fs is that people have ever believed that art is somehow different and that the art world is a world apart.

Addendum I (January 23, 2002)

Still, how wonderful it would be if art were somehow different. More, how wonderful it would be if at least one single artist were somehow different. Even more, how wonderful it would be if that artist were I.

Addendum II (January 13, 2015)

The previous addendum was tongue in cheek, to be sure. Close to the turn of the millennium, I was still not sure of my own self. This has changed in the meanwhile. And how. The three Fs are well beyond me by now, the last F included. The first F was a problem for a while, but no longer. Fame, fortune, and sexual favors are history. Of this I am as sure as sure can be. The only thing I am not sure about is whether or not I am still an artist. My claim that my Residua is a work of art has always been tongue in cheek. My apologies to the art world.