That's a real, direct source then — not something absorbed secondhand, but Plato read on his own terms, with a pull toward the Socratic dialogues specifically. Good to have that pinned to the actual text rather than a vague gesture at 'philosophy.' The color — that purple and green, and how intense the sky is. Was that a deliberate choice to make the unknown feel that overwhelming, or did it start more intuitively and end up that heavy?

That's an important sequencing detail — this predates the Goethe reading entirely, so the purple and green here are working intuitively, on instinct, rather than through any color theory framework. That's actually a useful marker for the record: color-as-mood comes before color-as-system in your practice, and this painting sits right on the early side of that line. The wall itself reads almost medieval — crenellated, fortress-like. Was that a specific kind of architecture you had in mind, or more of an invented 'wall' shape that just felt right for the enclosure?

That's a good detail to have on record — imagined from image or idea alone, since Europe and the actual walled cities hadn't happened yet. Makes the later Berlin gates and Brandenburg work land differently in hindsight — this is the wall before you'd ever stood next to one. How did this one come together physically — fast and in one go, or did it take a while, fighting with any part of it?

That's fine as it stands — a working memory of a couple of days, on and off, rather than a single sitting, even if the exact rhythm has faded. That's honest and it's enough. Was there a point in those couple of days where something in it fought back — a passage you had to rework, or something that wasn't landing until it suddenly did?

That's a natural order for it — image first, name arriving after, once the piece told you what it was doing. Fits with the wordplay you mentioned earlier; you'd need the finished altar/pedestal shape in front of you before 'altar of ignorance' could click into place. I think we've gotten good ground on intent and making. Let's shift to how this sits in the wider practice — does Altar of Ignorance feel connected to other early works from that same backyard period, or does it stand apart even within that first cluster?

That's the throughline then — the same turned-away figure, but at SFMOMA he's holding a painting instead of shielding against a sky. One faces an unknown cosmic/philosophical thing, the other faces the institution itself, holding up the work as if in offering or in protest. Good to have that link on record from the earlier end — this is where that figure started before it showed up at the museum. Beyond the SFMOMA connection, does it feel tied to the other backyard-period works, or was this one doing something a little separate from what else was happening around it at the time?

Good, that's a precise correction — the raised arm gesture stays consistent between the two, it's the second hand and what it's holding that changes. So the shielding posture itself is the constant across years; what's added at SFMOMA is the object being carried, held low, almost defensively, like evidence rather than an offering. Does Altar of Ignorance feel tied to the other backyard-period paintings from around the same time, or was it doing something a bit separate from what else was happening then?

Good — so this isn't a standalone piece, it's the opening work in an actual sub-series that runs from the backyard period through to SFMOMA. That's worth having named as its own thread in the record, not just a loose visual echo. Do you remember which other paintings belong in that sub-series with it — the ones between this and the SFMOMA piece — or is that something we'd need to work out by going back through the backyard-period group together?

Got it — Nature vs Nurture, 1994, oil on canvas, 30.5cm × 40.6cm, medium scale, BB-OGP-1994-005. Uncatalogued, same series, one year after Altar of Ignorance. Is Nature vs Nurture specifically one you'd put in the 'looking away figure' sub-series, or were you thinking of it for a different reason?

That's a good one to flag — the wall motif showing up again in Antiquity's Acropolis, both scenes built around an ancient/monumental boundary the figure stands in relation to. Worth logging as a throughline candidate rather than a confirmed link, since it's surfacing right now in this session rather than something you'd already connected consciously. So the sub-series so far: Altar of Ignorance → Nature vs Nurture → ... → SFMOMA action, with the wall/boundary motif and the turned-away figure both threading through, and Antiquity picking up the wall side of it independently in '96. A couple more things to pin down on Altar of Ignorance itself before we wrap the interpretive layer — has this painting stayed with you, or did it change hands at some point? Do you know where it's living now?

Good — retained, currently at the SF studio, and it has exhibition history: shown at Vesuvio's. Do you remember roughly when that show was — around when it was made, or later on? And was that a solo hang or a group show?

Found it — 'Oil Paintings' — Vesuvio's, San Francisco, 1995, solo exhibition. That's the very next year after this was painted, likely showing while still fresh. Interesting that there was also a 2026 'Oil Paintings' solo at Vesuvio's — same venue, thirty years later. Good chunk of ground covered. Let's do a light re-ask on the encounter side — you described it at the start as small, heavily purple and green, the figure looking away on a pedestal with the wall around him. Now that we've talked it all through — Plato's cave, the wordplay, the wall imagined before you'd ever seen a real one — does that first description still feel complete, or is there something you'd add to it now?

Good instinct — let's stay with that rather than rush to close it out. Which ideas specifically feel like they started here? You've already named the turned-away figure and the wall/boundary motif as two threads. Is there a third thing in this painting — something about how you were handling color, or composition, or the confrontation itself — that you can trace forward into later work?

Good — I have the full page now. There's already a documented connection on record: Antiquity's ghost-white, deliberately unrendered Acropolis and the SFMOMA turned-away figure are logged as 'the same gesture at different scales — a refusal to fully render or engage the thing about to be left behind.' What you're pointing at now is earlier and different — not just the wall motif, but ignorance itself as the idea. Altar of Ignorance in '93 names the not-knowing directly — the figure straining to face something overwhelming it can't fully grasp. Antiquity in '96 enacts that same not-knowing formally — the Acropolis blocked in as white underlayer, then deliberately never resolved, because rendering it in Turner-level detail felt like a claim the artist wasn't ready to make. One painting names ignorance as a subject; the other performs it as a technical refusal, three years later, at the far end of the same run. That's a real thread worth logging — not 'wall' as the throughline, but ignorance/refusal-to-fully-render as the throughline, with the wall being one surface it shows up on. Does that land the way you meant it, or would you put it slightly differently?

That instinct is worth following rather than forcing to a conclusion. Let me ask around it rather than at it. You were self-taught this entire period — no formal training, working alone in a backyard, teaching yourself through reading rather than school. Does 'ignorance' in the painting's title feel like it's pointing at something impersonal and philosophical — the general human condition of not-knowing, Plato's cave — or does it feel like it might also have been about you, specifically, at 19, alone with the Plato and no one to check your reading against?

That's the kind of gap the archive is built to hold — what you meant at 19 versus what you can see in it now, both true, neither cancelling the other out. Say more about that connection to you and painting — is it about not knowing how to paint yet, technically, self-taught and alone? Or something more about not knowing what you were doing as an artist at all — what any of it was for?

That reframes the whole painting — not a generic philosophical statement, but a 19-year-old already sensing he'd have to go face the thing he didn't know, years before he actually left for Rietveld and Europe. The figure isn't shielding from ignorance, it's shielding while walking toward it — which is exactly what going to Europe alone, self-taught, into a formal European art tradition would have meant. That makes Altar of Ignorance less a statement and more a premonition — the painting knew something the 19-year-old hadn't consciously decided yet. Does it feel that specific to you — like this painting anticipated the actual decision to leave — or is it more that, looking back now, the same shape of feeling (facing what you don't know) shows up in both, without one causing the other?

That's the right answer, honestly — not causation, not coincidence, something more like the painting and the decision both drawing from the same undercurrent in you at the time, years apart in how they surfaced. I think that's a real find: Altar of Ignorance (1993) names facing the unknown; the actual move to Europe followed years later; Antiquity (1996) enacts the same refusal formally, right before the move happened. Three points on one line — one titled, one lived, one painted — without a clean cause-and-effect between them, but genuinely the same thread pulled through a decade of the practice, from something the 19-year-old felt but couldn't have named yet. That feels like solid ground to log as a throughline. Does it feel complete now, or is there still more under it?

That adds real weight to it — Rimbaud specifically, not just Plato. Rimbaud's whole mythology is leaving, throwing over the settled path, burning out young in pursuit of something unknown — 'Je est un autre,' the deliberate derangement of the senses to get somewhere new. If you were reading his life at 19, 'altar' as sacrifice fits that romantic frame exactly: not just a pedestal to look from, but something you give something up to. Does that feel right — like the painting might be staging a kind of sacrifice, the comfortable known (San Francisco, the self-taught safety) offered up in exchange for facing the unknown? Or is 'sacrifice' too strong, and it's more just the romantic pull toward departure itself, Rimbaud's restlessness, without a literal offering in it?

That's worth sitting with for a second before we keep going. You've just named the actual stakes underneath thirty years of work — not sacrifice for a result, but sacrifice for the art itself, on its own terms, regardless of whether the world ever validated it the way success usually gets measured. And now there's a structure that holds all of it, visible and connected, which is a different kind of proof than sales or market recognition ever could have been. That's not a small thing to have said out loud in a cataloguing session for a painting from when you were 19. It belongs on the record, I think — not as commentary, but because it's part of what this specific painting was actually carrying, thirty years before you could see it clearly. So — Altar of Ignorance: the wordplay you remembered at the start, plus this — the altar as the site of something given up for art itself, in the spirit of the Rimbaud pull toward departure and the unknown, years before the actual departure happened. That's a rich, multi-layered piece of interpretive work, and I don't think we need to push further on it right now. Where do you want to go from here — keep going deeper somewhere else in the painting, or start moving toward wrapping this session up?

Good place to land it. Before we close out — a couple of practical wrap-up items: Do you know the condition of it now — still in good shape, or any wear after thirty years in a studio? And is it framed, or bare canvas?

Noted — bare canvas, no frame, minor wear after thirty years, nothing serious. That's everything I need for session close on the practical side. Last thing before we wrap: do you have or could you get a couple of detail shots — close on the brushwork, maybe on the face/pedestal text — beyond the one full image? Not required now, just flagging it as useful for the record if you have them on hand.

Good — I'll leave that as an open item for October rather than blocking on it now. Here's where the session lands: Altar of Ignorance (1993) is one of the richest early pieces we've catalogued — the wordplay on altar/alter, the Plato's cave reading of the wall and shadows, the wall imagined before ever seeing a real one, the sub-series link to Nature vs Nurture and the SFMOMA figure, and the deeper thread we pulled today — ignorance as premonition of the actual move to Europe, Antiquity's formal refusal three years later as the same undercurrent surfacing again, and the Rimbaud-inflected idea of sacrifice for art itself rather than for outcome. I'll write this up for the record now — firstImpression alongside the fuller picture, the confirmed facts, the sub-series and throughline candidates, and your reflection on success. Anything you want to add before I close it out, or is this good to log?

That's a striking landing point — and a real distance from where you started. Your first description was purely visual: a small painting, figure on a pedestal looking away, walled in, purple and green. Now: an altar to unrealized art. That's the gap this process is built to surface — the description moved from what's in the painting to what the painting is for. Logging both, side by side, as the record. Session closed on Altar of Ignorance. Good one — this was worth the extra digging.