I told him, I have nothing to hide, there is my collection. I am keeping my work in that old map-case of mine. You may have a look, nothing to hide away, old drawings and paintings. Some of them are stiff and clumsy, the line is somehow insecure and is missing the elegant flow.

Firstly this drawing shows my hand, it belongs to me. Why are you telling me it is rubbish! And why should I destroy this very picture? From where and with what should I measure my progress, or regression. And then between the black lines I discover my so-called red thread. Turning the pages it appears here and there; on some drawings on paper it seems to be hidden amongst the criss-cross black lines of my pen and ink work. My movements on the paper are like the bear of the Gypsies, who staggers before a laughing audience. You see, because I did not destroy them, I developed step by step, piece by piece and page by page a new type of Gypsy dance, out of the dance of a staggering, shuffling bear. Have a look, here in this big painting it is starting; so there is no reason to destroy the earlier drawings.

I have been running in the daytime to catch the new dancing tune, and then, in the middle of the night it started like moonshine on a silver thread. The flowers began to nod their heads up and down in the silver light, and out of this movement one flower began to weep. A song was born in the moonlit night, my Gypsy dance caught up the "Kleine Nachtmusik" (little night music), and I could hear Amadeus clapping his hands to the rhythm of the extended dance. What about the former dances, the dancing bear, the Gypsy dance, and what about all the clumsy staggering in the beginning? What do we call bad, and can one distinguish some good, now that we are dancing the silver moonshine dance?

There is no secret to discover, you have to develop your own roots like a plant coming out of a seed. The root directs the first leaf to start to the top above the ground, and so on. At least flowers are blossoming, and out of this naturally the fruit is growing. Who likes to say that this is the work of a genius? All that is required is that you persevere from the beginning and do not deviate from your goal.

If the educationalists are to be believed, 75% of art can be taught, the other 25% the aspiring artist has to walk alone. Finishing the last 25% one can see on the horizon ones own form and style emerging. This may be the reason why most well known artist are becoming quite old. If you look at the father generation, they all lived into their eighties and nineties. (Nolde, Chagall, Picasso etc.) All the early developed artists, the geniuses, die at a relatively young age. Mostly they were unable to ripen a proper fruit, and only the fruit is responsible for survival in the future. These geniuses mostly survive in special art history books.

Time is judging the artist, not by a single picture, but by his entire work.