I’VE ALWAYS BEEN CHARMED by the brag attributed to Picasso: “I don’t seek, I find.” It feels true, in his case, but also reminds me of those fellow students who used to say, “Oh, I never study for the exam”: Probably they were secretly cramming after convincing everyone else there was no need to do so.
Still, ever since I met Andy Robert a couple of years ago, I’ve seen him as an artist who probably finds more than he seeks. What that means: using a kind of free-floating, omnidirectional attentiveness rather than a goal-oriented intensity of focus. I got a clue as to how this spidey-sense works recently when I went to Robert’s studio—not when I was in his studio, mind you, but as I was on my way. The studio is in Red Hook in Brooklyn, a long walk from the nearest subway station, so of course I was running late to meet Robert on what he’d just informed me was his birthday. “Just off subway, be there in ~10,” I texted him, a little after I was already supposed to have been there.
