Art Is Great

Thermal paper scroll in box Closed (in box): 21.5cm x 9cm x 7.7cm (8.5″ x 3.5″ x 3″), Open: 5.7cm x 6000cm (2.2″ x 2362″)

Materials thermal paper, walnut ink

Art is Great is a 60-meter (196 foot) handwritten scroll on thermal paper, composed in walnut ink over the course of nearly three years, beginning in December 2020, a year into the COVID-19 pandemic. The work began out of solitude: in Madrid, far from from friends and family, creatively uncertain. What emerged over time was a recursive meditation on mark-making, impermanence, and survival.

The repeated phrase “Art Is Great” functions as a structural anchor and a protective refrain: part mantra, part deflection, part prayer. Art as practice and lifeline. Through its repetition, the phrase shifts from ironic to devotional, resigned to euphoric. It becomes the rhythm of staying alive.

This period also marked a personal turning point, as I began transitioning from my identity as Writer (after 25 years of publishing fiction) into making visual art. Art is Great became a stocktaking of language, of memory, of my resources. The use of cash-register thermal paper suggests a ledger of sorts, a reckoning. The act of writing with walnut ink and a watercolor brush begins to dissolve the boundary between writing and drawing, text and mark.

The cadence of my written work was shaped by the rituals of the synagogue, especially the embodied experience of Torah scrolls being read aloud, often seated beside my father in the men’s section. That influence finds its echo here. An intimate liturgy – handwritten, cyclical, and deeply personal – invites the reader-viewer into a form of secular prayer, inscribed during moments of transition, seasonal change, and prolonged isolation.

In its entirety, Art is Great is a record of years lived between worry and wonder. A prayer in a scroll. A thank-you note to Art, and to a father full of enthusiasm about the natural world.

The piece is accompanied by a series of short video fragments documenting the writing process and its surrounding environment, adding another layer of time and atmosphere to the work.

Text “Art is great. It’s like the seeds and the flowers all in one, really. Art is great. It’s like everything you need is inside, like seeds. Art is that which I impart. That’s what it is for me. Sharing of the wonder that is the world, which is one thing I inherited from my dad. The world is awesome. All of it, because you have to love it in its entirety. The world is great. Ergo art is great. I think my dad felt that deeply a profound sense of wonder and curiosity and a connectedness to all things and beings. It’s overwhelming to feel so connected. Art is fab. It’s so great. It alleviates the loneliness that comes with that awareness of a connection to and with everything. Today is Saturday and there are groups of people everywhere. Everywhere here. Although it’s suddenly gone. It’s suddenly gone and I feel calmer. And that too is an inheritance from my dad. People are sometimes nicer when they are gone. Art is great. I think I need to take a break. A few days later and I’m here in the park, Casa de Campo. But it’s too cold for art. Or my heart is too cold and too needy for anything particularly creative. And I’m not sure what I’m doing. Sometimes art is an escape, a way to find work for idle hands. Art is the devil’s work. I used to feel blah, blah, blah, whatever. Some moons later or thereabouts we’re at war again, papa. And that makes art very difficult. And here in the park the people laugh like savages and French men jog. Can you jog my memory?” To read the full text, click here.