SOL LEWITT LETTER TO EVA HESSE

Dear Eva,

It will be almost a month since you wrote to me and you have possibly forgotten your
state of mind (I doubt it though). You seem the same as always, and being you, hate
every minute of it. Don’t! Learn to say “Fuck You” to the world once in a while. You have
every right to. Just stop thinking, worrying, looking over your shoulder wondering,
doubting, fearing, hurting, hoping for some easy way out, struggling, grasping,
confusing, itchin, scratching, mumbling, bumbling, grumbling, humbling, stumbling,
numbling, rumbling, gambling, tumbling, scumbling, scrambling, hitching, hatching,
bitching, moaning, groaning, honing, boning, horse-shitting, hair-splitting, nit-picking,
piss-trickling, nose sticking, ass-gouging, eyeball-poking, finger-pointing, alleyway-
sneaking, long waiting, small stepping, evil-eyeing, back-scratching, searching, perching,
besmirching, grinding, grinding, grinding away at yourself. Stop it and just DO!

[Sol LeWitt, Brief an Eva Hesse, ‘DO!’, 14. April 1965]

Finally, what is most interesting to me regarding artist friends is something that is

entirely out of my control. I meet who I consider to be my artist friends in my dreams.
These ‘friends’ are changing all the time but are usually famous somehow. I don’t know
what this says about my subconscious but when I wake, there are lessons to be learned.

For example, I once dreamt that I was visiting the studio of Lee Krasner and she
advised her assistant to „Seek out in literature what you are trying to do in your art.
To find authors who are doing similar things with words that you are doing with pens
and brushes, etc.“ Not bad advice.

A lesson on style, this one involving Karl Lagerfeld.

’I happened to be in a café when he (Karl Lagerfeld) walked in. Only now he was wearing
no sunglasses. We struck up a conversation about style. I said, ‘No one has style’, to
which a person to my left in the cafe cried out ‘Paul Klee had style!’ Karl responded ‘But
that’s just it, everyone has style but it is an uninformed, ignorant style!

Another dream encounter involving Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns.

Apparently I was in Rome at the coliseum giving a speech that didn’t go so well: „I got
down off stage and walked out of there through the grass and over a little bridge that
crossed a small river. Once I crossed, Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns were
there waiting. Rauschenberg came up to me, put his arm around me and asked if I was
‘okay’. I kind of shrugged as he could see that I wasn’t. He stopped and looked at me
and said ‘All this means is that you have to keep going and do something new.’ He was
speaking in reference to my art. Johns remained mute. Later, as a joke, Rauschenberg
made a pass at me. We both laughed.“

The last encounter that I will share involves the late Lou Reed.
„Later in some house where I was staying, Lou Reed stopped by with his girlfriend. He
had his new book of poetry with him. I asked if he would like to trade me one of his
books for my catalog. He said ‘Yeah’. Then he said ‘But what happens when I get tired
of the catalog and you get tired of my book?’ To which I responded, ‘Well that’s okay,
then we look for something else.’ I was really nervous because I couldn’t find my
catalog and Lou Reed’s girlfriend asked why I was so nervous. I told her because I
couldn’t find one of my catalogs. Lou Reed then said ‘Don’t worry, next time.“

I won’t get into the fact that this is all in my head, that I’ve created my own versions
of real people, which I’m fully aware of. I prefer to think of them as separate
individuals that visit me from beyond the grave, through time, space and celebrity to
hang out with me because we all like each other and have something to share with one
another. If one has artist friends such as these, great! If not, do as I did and make
them up. Make them up and‚just DO!’.