Diligence Due

2025
“Dude, can you sleep at your place?”

“Yeah, I was trying to do the nocturnal thing, and it just didn’t work” 

“Dude, I just need you to not crash in my office during the day.”

“I just fell asleep, man… Get off my back.”

“Seriously?”

This is where I lose my shit. I slam the door and mutter things about hospitality and entitlement as he hurriedly puts his shoes on and gets on his bike. He leaves without saying goodbye. I feel self-righteous and sorry at the same time. I should know better than anyone what it’s like to have Jason Dill live in your studio. This is the third time in our 20 year friendship, and this time I had invited him in. 

It was a Saturday in 2025. I had been running all over in the usual weekend-parenting-errands rush, and had a minute to stop in the studio and get a bit of work done. Dill had been working there for the past eight months. Though he was living elsewhere, he had undertaken the unbelievably irresponsible task of becoming a painter. The madness, hermit-like isolation, and obsession are very real side-effects of making the choice he made, but, in all honesty, it could be a lateral move from being a professional skateboard rider. At least you don’t hit the concrete with your face as much. He had been painting in little stretches over the past few years. I thought some of it was good, so I had encouraged it. I selfishly feel the world doesn’t need any more surfers or artists, but if they have something good to say, I can be convinced otherwise. And Dill had actually been making some worthwhile attempts. I started to feel like people should only start making art after 40. Give me some scars, some life, some broken hearts, and then try and tell me something. Dill was doing it. He believed that his life post-skateboarding, post-skate board clothing and deck company, was art… and I totally agreed. 

As long as I have known him, he has had taste and discretion, two qualities that were very lacking in the pre-pandemic art scene. I concurred that he should slip in under the rope, and start making stuff. And I wanted to help. Truly, I wanted to be generous and help him make the things he wanted. He wanted to paint, and paint seriously. Not goof around and get by on his notoriety, but paint. So I made him a set of keys, pointed to half the studio, and said make yourself at home. 

I got a text from him saying: “Sorry, won’t happen again.” I gave him half the studio to work in, but I never explicitly said which half. My studio is a very wonderful and lonely place. Having him there let in an entropic energy that made the space feel vital. I needed a little courage and confidence, and Dill has always been able to provide that for me. The cost is negligible in the long run, but I don’t think about this, and I am still fuming, so I text back a series of rules about studio conduct and appropriate hours, etc. 

“That sounds fair, I totally get it,” he replies. I feel lame.

I didn’t see him again for almost a month. He haunts the studio in the hours he knows I won’t be around. I come in and see changes in paintings he’s been working on. Sometimes leaps, sometimes stumbles. I miss him. A week later he packs all his stuff up and moves it all into the pool house. Scrubs the studio Gattica clean. 

This is how Dill leaves.