This is personal

5:30 pm on Friday I'll be at a reception for emerging artists at the Carrollwood Cultural Center. I am honored to be included in this show.

A few things came to mind as I was driving away from the U-haul location, starting the adventure to deliver the pieces. The first one that came I've had this thought a few times on different things as the first words that often come to mind. And I don't want to get political when I say this, but sometimes it's so funny to do. So… My first thought was to quote the sitting president and say “This is a big fucking deal right here!” And I thought that thought instantly popped in like how big of a deal this is, a second thought instantly popped into my head to quote the last president and say that “It’s huge!”

And then I got serious for a moment.

Yeah, cuz you know, all that makes me laugh. But then I got serious for a moment and I remembered a line from the reel post that I recently made. At times I will get messages through music. So like I said I am driving off towards the great unknown with Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ On A Prayer” playing on the radio. Good old Asbury Park filling the corner of my eyes with salt water. My left hand holds steady as the right pounds out the drum beats. At that point it hit me. This is right here. This entire journey, from the Jersey Shore to Tampa Bay and all points in between. This entire story. This journey. This is personal.

The first piece that I'll share is called Ocean Walk. It is 24 by 48 inches. It's actually from a period back in 2020 when I was starting to make art. It was probably one of the biggest things I had made at that time. The long piece is the swipe. Lots of blues are involved in this. It does look like you know, you're walking straight from the sand into the ocean, the blue and the brown off of his shoreline. I experimented with glow paints a little bit there.

The beach is always been a source of inspiration for me like I mentioned the Jersey Shore. I was born in Neptune, New Jersey which is the next town over from Asbury Park. When I was five we moved to Palatka, Florida. Putnam County is just close enough to St. Augustine and Daytona Beach. So Crescent Beach is where we spend our summers. I went to Jacksonville University for college. That meant Jax Beach for several years. Later I left sunrises on the East Coast and came down to St. Pete for work. The first sunset I found was Madeira. My life changed the first time I explored the drum circle in Treasure Island. From there I would meet Honeymoon Island, Redington Shores, Indian Rocks Beach, Pass-A-Grill, Fort DeSoto, Crystal Beach, and many more spots dotting the west. I live in Clearwater now. So right across the bridge is Clearwater Beach, San Key, and a lot of tourists. I tell people daily that we are spending another day in paradise. And for me going to the beach is you know it's a time where I can just kind of be with God. I don't know what better way to put that. Be with the Creator, be with the Source, be with the Almighty. Pick your name. Insert your favorite deity here if that makes you feel better about the wording. Sometimes I have recreated Footprints with Jesus, laughing and crying our way up and down the shoreline. It’s my sacred place. It’s personal.

The second piece I'm going to talk about actually seems a little dark. But you know it's worth it. I think it was called April showers. At 48 by 48 inches, this flip cup is now one of the largest pieces I have tried.

Funny story about this piece here. When I got the canvas, I ordered two of them online at Michaels using points. I didn't measure the vehicle that I had at the time to see if it was gonna fit. I had this Chevy Equinox that I wish I had right now but a different story. I didn't measure to see if these pieces would fit inside. My thought was that since I had fit other large ones inside this one had to fit. I mean it wasn’t the biggest one offered. Plus I was getting them at a really good deal. Normally they are like $100 each and I think I got them both for $60 with points vouchers while on sale. So I showed up at the store and the poor sales associate was walking out holding both of these things. The canvases were bigger than the girl. Luckily I had a couple of moving straps in the vehicle because they were not going inside. So here I am driving super slow with these things strapped to the hood. Doing 25 miles an hour on a street where the speed limit is 45. So embarrassed getting these to the apartment that day. But worth it!

But yeah, April showers like I said that was the biggest piece I had done at the time, and that time I just had a lot that I needed to get out of me. April has not been my favorite month just thinking about it right now as I'm watching the sun go down. April just hasn't been great to me in the past. There's been a lot of pain, a lot of loss. Family members, lovers, coworkers, friends, royals, strangers, self.

I'm not a big fan.

And honestly, I kind of got sick of thinking about it. I needed to get all of this pain out of me somehow. We can either sit and let the pain consume us or we can, you know, do something about it. And I just felt the need to do something about it there. So I went and grabbed as many colors as I could think of that night. I used green as it’s tied to the heart chakra. I wanted to bring love into this since it was not how I had years ago planned to spend my April 1st. But here I was alone in a room on a Friday night with colors and Twiddle playing live in the next room. There are tiny globs of paint that I just left since they looked like snakes to me. Every bit of dark rage opened up and spread over this giant canvas. The skeletons of my past. Creation really can be a healing experience. The canvas becomes in ways a therapist, a prayer room, a confessional, and once dry an entry page into a journal. For me, being able to share April Showers is like sharing a window into my soul. It’s personal.

The third piece is kind of the opposite of that. It’s maybe my favorite out of the five, and the one I most hope doesn’t come back. I was looking at the spot where it hung forever on my bedroom wall. My goal was to cover the wall and give myself something to see each morning that would get me out of bed. I got used to using it for my video conference background. To me, it looks almost like a set of angel wings when I stand in front of it. Maybe because it embodies me.

Neptune is my other 48 by 48-inch piece. There's a funny shaman story for you here too folks. So I made this piece on April 10th of 2022, which was my 45th birthday. I started this Sunday morning with a walk to hug Maggie the Magnolia tree, then returned home to dye my hair blonde for the day. I set up the camera this time with a video that you can watch on Youtube. Put on some 90’s breakbeats from The Spacemen I want to say and raved out for the afternoon in that same lonely room. I did pause once midway to take a video call from my grandmother. It was such an honor to see and hear from her that day. Sidequest story moment here… so the day I was born was Easter Sunday. That morning my mom got up and attended the sunrise service. Afterward, she came home and decided to make scrambled eggs. I decided that day that I didn’t like eggs. Still don’t like them. They taste like ice cream to me, which is horrible. But my mom would not let me forget this as she would tell me this story each year. Back to talking about my grandmother, she called and sang happy birthday to me the day that I made this painting. I think just after the call is when I picked up the hair dryer and began to allow this cosmic adventure to take shape. After I was done I remember going to the drum circle, dubbed “Hippie Church” by many of us. A friend brought out his silent disco setup and I used the glowing headphones as my Facebook profile picture. Just the inner light coming out. The creative inner child. Sharing Neptune for me is personal.

I have two other pieces and a mystique about the fourth piece

The fourth piece is an interesting one for me to share after those two gigantic ones. It’s smaller in physical size at just 12 inches round. But has just as much heart and soul. American Dream is beautiful, and shiny, and represents to me what this whole journey has been. This is one of my newer creations, but the story goes back decades. Music has been in my life since I can remember. I can remember being in middle and high school and wanting to be a DJ. Even before one of the first vinyl albums I can remember buying with saved allowance money was Purple Rain. When I got to college I discovered the rave scene and grew to love everything about electronic music including its usage of these large black circles. I would mass a collection that ranged in various genres before one day allowing the sad trappings of adult life to get in the way. Soon much of the collection was sold or packed away for safekeeping, with a small stack set aside just in case an art project came up. I had been looking at this time at maybe making a small craft for my walls alone when I got the news that my mom was sick. She was the one who had introduced me to this whole crazy world anyway, leaving out the stack of records that she and Dad enjoyed before his death. Disco, funk, soul, gospel, and Kenny Rogers. Over the years we exchanged music as an acceptable birthday gift. One year I got her the entire Luther Vandross singles collection on 45 along with a new turntable. I was making far more money back then. I went back thinking I would set up the turntable for her to enjoy some music during her recovery, only to discover that it was gone. My sister had thrown it out along with all of the vinyl records in the house, and the family reunion VHS tapes. She said there was no way to use those things anymore. Shocked me due to my job at the time doing in part transfer of videos from analog to digital and yeah my side business selling old records on eBay. But whatever, I was going to be with my mom during this time. Moving back home was not easy. I was reunited with my childhood bedroom. It still had the old blue paint from decades before, along with the crude graffiti-like crayon drawing that my buddy put on the wall one night of himself. I left the muraled selfie and decided to cover the rest of the walls with some of the leftover purple that was purchased for her bedroom. Knowing her all of my life it seemed like an odd choice. But someone said that purple matched the type of cancer she was fighting so everything needed to be that color. Again weird to me as she didn’t like Prince that much was my first thought. I could remember getting into trouble playing that same first-purchased vinyl record from the rumor that people heard about the end of Darling Nikki. And the lyrics of Darling Nikki. And just whatever he was wearing. And all the other stuff that happened in the movie. But whatever they had purple leftover so I would use some on my walls to cover as much of the old blue as possible. The trouble was that my stuff was already in the room and I didn’t have enough stuff under drop cloths. So I was moving stuff around and somehow an open crate ended up with a bucket of paint on top of it. After the initial “oh shit” moment, I cleaned up what I could and set the now uncovered but paint-on-them records aside to think of what would happen next. Maybe carving an image with a hot knife or making bowls or picture frames. I experimented with clocks. I found myself watching a lot of Youtube tutorials. Mostly it was something calming from the chaos that was my work in television news. It was showing someone happy doing something they loved. When we are depressed and grieving especially, anything that can give us hope is welcomed. I remember at one point watching Birdbox on Netflix and it is at this point at the beginning where Sandra Bullock is painting in her home. Her sister walks in and takes a painting from in front of the television set to show her whatever chaos is happening outside which starts the film. After seeing that I didn’t want to deal with anything else, but instead just wanted to stick a painting in front of my television screen. My personal painting experience was limited. I was no Picasso and not even a Bob Ross despite how many nights I would fall asleep to his voice telling me how to make a fantastic painting. Somehow I found this series of easy tutorials for inexpensive ways to upcycle old vinyl records. A few showed this method called acrylic pouring. Household items such as a hairdryer, glue, plastic cups, and WD-40 were all I was told that I needed. I’ve had a habit for several years of doing something for myself on my birthday. One year I decided to try out glassblowing, which was amazing. That year I decided on pouring. So after meeting a friend for acai bowls and then strategically with my therapists at the time, I picked up a few items along with lunch and went home to experiment. Genesis was born that day. It was blue, green, yellow, red, white, and mostly grey. It still smells years later to me like WD-40 from the suggestion to spray it into the cup with this to make cells. That suggestion doesn’t create cells by the way. I fell in love with the technique and likely would have just stopped there. The next day I dragged myself like many before back to my corporate job and sighed as I sat down at my desk. I then was asked to a meeting with my manager and the HR person. They informed me that my services were no longer needed. The same words of “suffering from burnout” that the best friend and therapist had separately said the day before were now being repeated. Never mind any cause, a breaking point was reached. I was speechless during most if not all of this as the two of them spoke. Her mostly had a lot of jargon that flew over my head. Him simply asking to make sure I understood that I would soon be unemployed. Towards the end, she remarked that it looked as if a weight was taken off me. A line I still hope that she wasn’t but fear she was trained to say. I looked up and uttered the only thing I could think. “Looks like I have time to paint.” I then asked them to email me everything and went back to my desk to process the news. What I would end up doing is tinkering with the recipe for pouring medium. I would watch more tutorials, this time in the middle of the day fully awake as if I was cramming information for a college exam. I would try out different tools and techniques that I saw in each. In this piece here American Dream I used the tip of a dry paper towel to rake over the top of the paint from a line across the middle, creating a swiped tear across the surface. I’ve made hundreds of these vinyl paintings. Many times starting as practice for whatever I am testing. Many once covered with resin become beautiful orbs that take the viewer into new dimensions. I experimented again with clocks before just discovering these as their works of art. For me, this is the realization of my dream.

That's why this is important to me. Right now. Art is my backup plan. It is my insurance policy. I like to say that every painting includes at least three drops of red salty water. This is where the blood, the sweat, and all the tears flow. Where everything comes out. This American Dream of mine is personal.

This is every person who's told me that I wasn't good enough to do something. Who just kind of dismissed what was happening. For those times when feelings and beliefs and hopes are tossed to the side.

This is, you know, every bit of depression, every bit of anxiety, every post-traumatic moment. These are the days when I don't feel like getting out of bed. These are the days when it hurts to take those walks. These are the days where I look out and I wonder why. These are the days when there's a notice on the door saying that rent is late. When you wake up for work and find that your car has been repossessed. When all you hear from others is noise.

“Grow up!” “Get a real job!” “You’re no Picasso!” The days when the noise is even louder in my mind. The doubt and worry that maybe they are right, and I don’t deserve to have anything good happen in my life. This is for the times when flashbacks from past voices come haunting. The voices that said that I didn’t belong. “You’re not black!” This is for the moments I don’t speak about. The mental anguish, physical pains, and emotional scars. The spiritual struggle that I have lived with for decades, for among other reasons not seeing fully practiced what is preached. This is for the trauma left after a ride home from work. There is so much of my pain involved here with this dream. It is for every person who went to eternal sleep before me. The Mother, the Father, the Prince, everyone. This is for every moment of grief felt. This is for every bit of loneliness. Every moment of rejection. This is every time that I have come home exhausted from the day. Every time I have had to climb up the stairs because I couldn’t walk. Every night I have cried myself to sleep, begging God in prayer to just end this. Every time that I have begged for it all to be over, only to wake up some point later. A calm voice enters my head despite all of the chaos and just says “

Are you going to get a real job? These are those days there. These are the days when you ask yourself because you doubt yourself. Okay? Because you've been told by so many people that you're not it. Okay? These are the days where you know, I think back on just being told as a kid you're not black. Oh my god, that's so hateful. Especially from family members. You know, you're not black, you're not one of us. You're not this you're not that you are this you are that. Okay? This is being called gay as a kid being called, you know, a little Christian boy as a kid and not gay or lesbian, a Christian but still insults people. You know, these are the people who have lied to you and beat you up. These are the things that have just, you know, downtrodden you there. This is the abuse that you've taken, you know, the mental, physical, emotional, spiritual, sexual abuse. Okay, I have touched on this topic. But yeah, these are the times where, you know, the people have not been the greatest, you know, role models to you, where you have the guy who just looks at you as prey and did so several of yearly grooming you into being you know, trust person just doing it reaches handover as vehicle late at night and see how much of your deck he can grab on a drive home. This is for those moments, right there. You have to get over those things. Like I said, this is for every single person who's died. The Mother, the Father, the Prince, everyone. Okay, this is every bit of trauma, every bit of hurt, every bit of pain that I have ever gone through to make it to these moments. This is every bit of doubt. This is every night that I have laid here, crying in this bed, wishing, praying to God to just end it. This has been me so many nights that I have prayed for it to all end only for God to wake me up later saying “No bitch. Get up! You have work to do. Your story is not done. Go make a painting.” This is my American Dream, and it’s personal.

The final entry is called Sunset Glow. This is a 16 by 20 inch that I made this summer. It is not an acrylic pour, but instead a simple oil landscape with blacklight reactive paints. For me, this piece brings the entire art journey full circle. I can remember being in elementary school with watercolors and markers. The teacher would assign whatever assignment to create something pretty and it always seemed like whenever coming to my desk would just notice me making another beach. Usually pretty simple. For this one, I didn’t put any trees, as it would represent being just at the shoreline. The shadow side of a bird floats just above the water. If you didn’t know better you would think that I used a photograph that I took on one of my trips as a reference. My inner Ross decided to try something different. These days I find myself using charcoal, pencils, pens, soft pastels, and now digital apps to recreate the same picture of what I see heaven on earth as being. I’ve spent a lot of days as a substitute teacher, much of it with 4th graders. It was such an honor for me to be able to sit down with them and share the techniques that I have picked up over the years after classes. There is so much that I have learned. When I first came to St Petersburg I visited the Salvador Dali Museum. There are all of these crazy abstract oil paintings inside that look like your brain on drugs. Tiny swirly lines and ants and geometric lines and sexually suggestive weirdness and just all types of stuff. At the beginning of the tour, I remember when at the old location they had Dali’s first self-portrait. It’s from I want to say 1918 and has very warm colors. Feels a bit impressionist though I am not a trained person to know one period or style from another. Just feels like thick blotches of different colors to make the scene. In the painting, you see Dali in his studio at the time, artwork surrounding him along the walls and floor, as he sits at his easel in front of a seaside window. I’ve sketched the postcard several times, buying one each visit just so that I can walk to whoever is in charge for the day and ask that they put the original painting back out in the gallery. I thought about that painting as I made this one. Full circle indeed. Sunset Glow is about my happy place, and it’s personal.

5:30 pm on Friday I'll be at a reception for emerging artists at the Carrollwood Cultural Center. I am honored to be included in this show. I would really appreciate seeing some friendly faces at the event. It would mean a lot to me having folks to share in this achievement with. If you’re in the greater Tampa Bay Area, consider this an invitation. If you have the means to do so, take something home with you. If not one of these five then there are a lot of other paintings that could use a new forever home. And if you’re out of area shipping can be arranged. Whatever it takes to share this story and journey with everyone.

Because this is perosnal!