simultaneous - not just action. As the brush moves on the surface the idea reveals itself. It is much more difficult than an onlooker might imagine. I also did Awakening Night the same way but when I did them I had not read of this in Zen literature. (November, 1947)

A letter from Barr of the Museum of Modern Art with invitation to the recent acquisitions. Remote Field, which will bring it into the light more and more as it is seen, I believe will hold up as a good painting of the war period and much more war, as it is felt, in it - more than all the reporting done by Life artists. (January, 1948)

Am very absorbed just at present in painting back of the plane surface while keeping the outer plane solid. It is a problem but the only one that interests me. (June, 1948)

San Francisco is a rather bottle-infested town with the most exhilarating lights in the world and a constant shifting of light and shadow; practically treeless except for a few remarkably beautiful parks - its climate alternates between brillant lights and drifting fogs and the hills are glorious.
I’m filling up hoping to paint better when I return to the rainy shores of the Northwest where even seagulls don’t know why they are seagulls and the Great Vacuum shifts and moans, not knowing what to do. But this has its values also. (July, 1948)

[...] we must consider the time element. (February 19, 1949)

Frank Lloyd Wright was contradictory - prima donnaish - damning, etc., etc. but after it’s all over I remember him the most and feel his force the greatest even if this force was not always understood. He said nothing that I agreed with really but he has a spiritual force and I remember him. He threw all the photos of the paintings exhibited on the table and said „Rubbish“. The next day he retracted because he said he hadn’t seen mine ... but then added, „Tobey isn’t modern.“ (June, 1949)

God! What a wealth of aesthetic and grandeur of forms await that day when we catch up with ourselves and the Orient begins to take its true meaning in our lives. It is certainly as rich as Europe; richer in many ways - more sense of general relationships anyway in