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were in our 50s, if ever. He basically thought that painting was an old person's activity and that it was not advisable to show before you were in your 40s. His point was that only through living a life and reaching deep into the lessons of the life can a painting approach anything like gravitas. At the time, we all thought he was "out of it" because we, of course, were all young geniuses … INSPIRATIONS. Jean Cocteau: First saw his gorgeous film La Belle et Le Bête at a revival house in Cambridge while a student. Can you imagine the effect on a young art student? It has everything: poetry, mystery and jaw-dropping beauty. Dusty Springfield: Dusty is a Goddess. As Burt Bacharach once said, "You hear three notes and you know it's her." I have an autographed picture of her on the wall of my painting area. I listen to a lot of different kinds of music and always have and she's been a favorite since I first heard her in 1965. There's a small painting hanging in my studio, which I did as an homage when I had a show in London. Charleston calling: My great friends and collectors David and Carol Rawle started inviting me to spend a week during the Spoleto Festival nearly 30 years ago. Consequently, they also invited my great friend Stephen Mueller to join. Stephen and I would travel from NYC to Charleston every May, armed with watercolors and paper. Every year, we would set up on two great tables in their sumptuous Italianate garden. It was like Romper Room for adults. We'd paint, take a break and visit, paint, take a break and visit ... Around 5 o'clock, Carol and David would return from work and look at what we'd done that day before having cocktails and going off to a Spoleto performance. Totally idyllic. As Stephen once remarked, it was like the most luxurious artist residency in existence. And the longest ... it went on for 28 years. Stephen also remarked that to make a watercolor, you had to feel like a prince or princess, totally unfettered. Two years ago, the Gibbes Museum presented an exhibition as the official Spoleto art offering of the watercolors that we had done there. Italian cinema watch list: Simply not enough space for all the Italian films I love and which were important to me. I could watch Luchino Visconti's The Leopard every week. And La Dolce Vita. I was saddened to learn of Anita Ekberg's death recently. Are there two more iconic scenes than her in the Trevi fountain or the one with a white kitten on her head? I can't think of many … The Antonioni trilogy: Eclipse, L'Aventurra, La Notte. HOW MANY VOLUMES ARE IN YOUR LIBRARY? HOW ARE THEY ORGANIZED? Haven't a clue, and I'm afraid to say they aren't. NIGHTTIME READING. • The complete work of Euan Uglow, a much under- praised British artist. • Don't Get Too Comfortable by David Rakoff. I love Rakoff's righteous anger coupled with his side-splitting humor. His notorious tirades … are cheer-inducing. • Honeydew by Edith Pearlman, a recent collection by a little-known master of the short story. Seemingly simple yet profound. • Clarice Lispector, a criminally under-read Brazilian writer. New Directions did a stylish job of publishing four of her outstanding works last year: Near to the Wild Heart, The Passion According to G.H., Aqua Viva, A Breath of Life. COLLECTIONS. Arts and Crafts pottery. Early 20th-century group photographs. Navajo blankets. Miniature birch-bark canoes. Consecutive editions of Emily Post's Book of Etiquette. Too much stuff. WISH LIST. To get rid of everything and live like a monk. GO-TO HOUSTON SOURCES FOR FINDS. Alas, I can't stop myself: The Guild Shop, Bluebird Shop, Assistance League. And when I want to give a friend a special gift, Sloan/Hall and Thompson + Hanson. ARTISTS THAT YOU FOLLOW OR TRADE WITH? I have work by Billy Sullivan, Robin Bruch, Georgia Marsh, Paul Heroux, Delia Doherty, Rene Ricard, Carol Beckwith, Matthew Barney, Kathy Bradford, Randy Twaddle, Stephen Mueller, Tom Price, Cora Cohen, Leah de Prizio, Chuck Holtzman and Linda Etcoff, among others. On my wish list: Rachel Hecker and Page Kempner. NEXT TRIP. Charleston, in May. SIGNATURE APPAREL ITEM. Anything that makes me look presentable. (Read: thinner.) YOU NEVER LEAVE HOME WITHOUT. An attitude. I love being home. ENTERTAINING EN STUDIO. Generally, I have people in the studio for cocktails and then go on to dinner. A favorite evening would be to walk around the corner to Piola. It's a very casual and very good Italian restaurant which serves the only gnocchi I will order in a restaurant. I grew up with homemade gnocchi, so that's saying something. FAVORITE MEAL CHEZ CASA. Vance makes a great penne with broccoli rapé and sausage. My default pasta is one I grew up with: spaghetti with cauliflower and chili flakes. An arugula and braised-fennel salad. Marcella Hazan's flour-less chocolate cake with almond flour. Imagery Estate Winery 2013 Aleatico Rosé from Sonoma County. And not just because I designed the label. WHAT'S PLAYING. The soundtrack from last year's Academy Award winner for foreign film, The Great Beauty. While I'm painting, there is a constant mix, which might range from Maria Callas to Steve Reich to MC Solaar. NEXT CHAPTER. Being in Maine and getting back into my studio groove. My NY dealer is waiting for a show. (Is there a book titled I'm Painting As Fast As I Can?) ON MEETING PARTNER/WRITER VANCE MUSE, COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR FOR THE MENIL COLLECTION. January 9, 1979. It was a snowy night on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. In spite of the blizzard (or because of it), we each took to the icy streets around midnight and made our separate ways to a rather desolate bar called, appropriately enough, The Bar. A dive with a good jukebox, the joint wasn't what you'd call jumping that night — a situation that we made the most of. BEST MANHATTAN ANECDOTE. My early years living in the city, I was invited to a dinner for Joan Mitchell, who was represented by the legendary Xavier Fourcade. Xavier could be formidable but was always gracious and supportive. His partner, Bernard Lennon (later to become my dealer), had seen the three- person show of which I was in, at Boone and introduced himself. We became friends and saw each other with some regularity. Bernard, knowing of my admiration for Joan's work, wanted us to meet. At that point, Joan was not the household name in the art world she would become. Fourcade was largely responsible for resurrecting her career in this country. However, Joan had a reputation for, shall we say, volatility and not suffering fools. I wasn't sure I was up to it but thought it would be bad form to decline such a rarified invitation. It was a seated dinner in one of the splendid rooms of the townhouse gallery. High ceilings, baroque moldings, highly polished floors. For the rest of the story and more conversation with Carl, peruse papercitymag.com. "THE APPREHENSION OF BEAUTY IS WHAT I'M ULTIMATELY AFTER." – CARL PALAZZOLO Left: Poised at the entrance to his office, the painter has made the 3,000-square-foot space his own. To left, IKEA cabinet and vintage pottery both provide pops of color. Top: A seating area anchors the space, as does a massive double-sided bookcase. Daybed, surrounded by Scandinavian mid-century prototype chairs never put in production. Japanese 1920s tea box serves as a table. A cotton dhurrie warms the floor. Collection of Arts and Crafts pottery atop the shelves. Bust of Virgin Mary, circa 1940s, with a Palazzolo-made mask for a Magritte table at the annual Inprint Poets & Writers Ball. Above: Palazzolo's elegiac Counting Absence #11 (for D.S.), 2004, at Texas Gallery.