Studio Visit with Glenn Goldberg

I forgot my camera and have these terrible cell phone shots... thats Glenn standing there in front of the painting with the half circle.
Link to some of his older work
Glenn is a great guy and a great artist, a real old soul.  He was a teacher at the Chautauqua Art Institute while I was there last summer.   His studio is in Bushwick and he invited me and Rory to come out sometime.  We finally made it out there last Tuesday.
We hung out for a while at first sitting and talking, but Glenn needed to keep busy so he took the big canvas with the half circle down, set it across 2 chairs and started to cover it in dots with a white-out pen. 
Glenn has a distinct view on art, a little old school, a little spiritual, all hard work.   He is an old-school new yorker really.  Raised in the Bronx and all that jazz.   The way he talks about his work is very interesting.  For example after laying down several hundred dots as we sat there he pauses and says "Look at that, that is good work.  Its not good art yet, but it is good work."  I have never really heard anyone talk about what they make in that way before.  It is like as long as you work hard, make good work, the good art will follow.  He says you need to figure out what you want to make, what kind of work you want to do.  Not necessarily "abstract painting" or "sculpture"  but almost more literal than that.  How do you want to physically spend your time?  What kind of motions do you want to go through?  How do you want to engage with the process of making? Is it a fast process?  Is it slow and meditative?
We talked about being a studio rat, and digging deeper and getting more and more consumed by your work.  A lot of what we talked about relates to something Rachael told me when I was bugging her in her studio last week.  It really stuck with me, she said something like if you are totally into what you are doing, always working hard at an idea, even if it is the dumbest idea ever, and you have your own personal logic and sense of direction, no one can touch you. 
It just makes sense, because I have been thinking a lot lately about making work that actually matters to me, getting rid of all the people in my work who I like but do not matter (painting people out as Phillip Guston said) taking a position, developing a personal logic for how to make work and pursue an idea.  It basically all boils down to JUST DO IT.  Let the work take over, direct it but be consumed. 
Later Glenn bought us dinner and showed us around the new building at Cooper Union, where he teaches a class.  It was like being in the Death Star.  He has a show coming up in New York in January at some gallery uptown.  Ill put it on my blog when I find out when and where exactly.  Id recommend going to it to anyone.  His work is very unique and interesting, almost has an outsider feel to it, but it is very idiosyncratic and in conversation with a lot of art history.