My Origin Story

I began making art when I was about three years old. My second memory was of me painting with my father. I was trying to copy him. Be him. I was painting a woman from a playboy. I remember she was a redhead but that original picture has gotten merged with every tall naked redhead a teenage boy has ever seen. Maybe she was blonde. I have a vague recollection of seeing how my image wasn’t quite right, and being aware of how childish it was (in that it was made by a child.)

My first memory was what I believe to be an early mystical experience. I was sitting on a bus with my mom in Venezuela. I had the aisle seat. We were in the deeper city, the scene was urban. It was a 1970s bus in South America, so think something probably from the us 1960s. Venezuela was about five to ten years behind the US, in my experience, before we adopted their culture. As a result, I experienced much of the 80s twice. For me, the Thundercats went on forever.

The bus was heading through an underpass when the bus stopped in the middle. Time stopped in the middle. I was not able to move around, but I knew that the people around me had no faces. Ahead, at the head of the bus, I saw a dark cloud. It extended toward me what to my memory looks like a cartoony arm. It asked me to take its hand, and when I refused, it stormed off. I could feel its rage at my refusal, and time moved on. My mom had a face again.

These two memories, these two incidents are the definition of what I am and how I define myself. I am an artist, and I am a philosopher. My hope, in writing is to open my ideas to others for critique, and to express the things that I think about. Until recently I suffered from a depression, a long term fog that kept me confused about many things. And now that I am out of that fog, I want to give those ideas some voice. I want to throw myself into the mix of the bigger conversation in as meaningful way as I can.

I write this to be part of my intention setting, to have ideas good enough to be taken seriously. I don’t pretend that this is not all to please my dad, whom I lost at five years old to schizophrenia. I’m okay with that, it helps me have ideals. Meanwhile, know that I burn hard inside, and I hope to make some powerful work to demonstrate how hot that fire burns.

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