MUSEletter - Edition 1
Dear friends,
First up I’d just like to shout out to everyone who has sent me a reply to the Museletter intro. It means so much and I love hearing the way you think too. I’ve had some really interesting ideas, thoughts, observations thrown my way already by so many of you and I can’t wait to send out some editions of this that include those ideas. Perhaps even with paintings in response.
Secondly, welcome to the first ever Museletter! I hope this can be a dialogue between my world and yours. A space for the things I’ve been inspired by this week, the colours that have appeared on my palette. And of course I’d love to hear your reactions, thoughts, moments this week that have inspired you.
Great, here it is!
I recently stumbled upon an interview with an artist called Alex Katz. His work is lean, colourful, and secretly very complicated. He is still going strong in his 90s—a proper New Yorker. He sits in time just before Pop Art. He said something that has really stuck with me, something I want to stick with me. A real insight:
“The immediate present is eternity.”
What strikes me about Katz’s observation is how counterintuitive it feels in an age obsessed with speed, archives, and futures. So much of our days now are about where we’re going, where we’ve been, who is doing what. Where are we meeting? But the more I sit with it, the more it resonates. It makes me wonder: is our obsession with the past and future just a defense mechanism against the overwhelming intensity of the present?
Painting is a wrestle with the now. But isn’t it curious how the act of painting freezes the moment into something that lasts longer than the moment? Something eternal. The paint dries. The moment is now captured—a thing that can exist in a mind, archived in a memory, and recalled in the future.
It makes me think that painting doesn’t just immerse us in the present; it creates an argument against time itself. It’s like saying: this is not a brushstroke. This is allbrushstrokes.
And maybe that’s why it feels like eternity—not because it stretches infinitely forward, but because it deepens infinitely inward. Infinite inwardness, if you will.
With this brief time on Earth, I’d like to capture as many of these moments as I can. All it takes is time and energy to bring them UP and OUT.
Here is one of Katz’s paintings that partculalry got me. In his work he is pulling us into the present. Pulling us as close as we can be to a moment. A moment frozen in time. Also a timeless one - moving around the world in the rain. The emotion in her eyes! I feel I can see her thoughts. What do you think she is thinking?
This week was full of days with low sun and striking shadows, where light and dark moved like a painter’s hand across the canvas of the world. Below, brisk Wednesday, early afternoon:
And finally, here is a painting I made this week. Perhaps it’s a dialogue to both the encounters above. Who knows? A facial expression reduced to a line, given life by the shadows. This image came to me and I simply COULDN’T get it out of my mind and so it had to be given life on the page.
Perhaps you can help me name it?
As I wrap up this first edition of the Museletter, I’m reminded of how much there is to uncover in the seemingly ordinary moments around us. Whether through a brushstroke, a shadow cast by the low sun, or a phrase that lingers in the mind, each moment holds the potential to deepen infinitely inward.
Thank you for taking the time to join me on this exploration. Looking forward to next week already. Until then, I hope you have a great holiday and see you next Sunday.
Joe x
p.s. If you think a friend or somebody close may enjoy this, do forward it on. I'd love for the receivership to grow and grow. Plus here's the link to sign up to future editions.