Basquiat

“There was this little prince with a magic crown. An evil warlock kidnapped him, locked him in a cell in a huge tower and took away his voice. There was a window made of bars. The prince would smash his head against the bars hoping that someone would hear the sound and find him. The crown made the most beautiful sound that anyone ever heard. You could hear the ringing for miles. It was so beautiful, that people wanted to grab the air. They never found the prince. He never got out of the room. But the sound he made filled everything up with beauty.”

- Julian Schnabel from his movie Basquiat

Some things on why Basquiat is important to me: In 1988 I had gone to three different high schools before finally settling in at Visual and Performing Arts High School. I immediately felt at home in this new school and it was a pretty great thing to be around other kids that wanted to make art. Prior to that I had never met anyone else that had ever heard of Jean-Michel Basquiat.

[More happens that I'll describe later on but I wanted to get to the point of this.]

On August 12, 1988 Basquiat died and he was the first sort-of hero that I had that ever died.

[And I'll talk more about this too.] These are just reminders is all.