Art found me when I needed it most.

“…and it’s all in how you mix the two, and it starts just where the light exists…”

These words written and sung by my friend Robbie when we were barely more than children, set me on a wholly unexpected path. A path to try and get something inside, out. To make something out of the physical and emotional pain I was experiencing and to share it beautifully in a way that made whoever saw it feel less alone.

It’s been more than a decade since art made me want to be an artist. I never arrived at a place of purpose and understanding as a creator like I thought it might. Visions of art saving and elevating me have given way to something more tangible and immediate. The battle to accept that I don’t understand what I’m doing here, that it confuses and scares me most of the time to be, to be anything at all. At the same time it, the everything “it”, continually strikes me as beautiful, as capable of being arranged to convey hints of truth, beauty and love without ignoring the pain and shadow that gives shape to the light.

I’m grateful to you for being here. For reading these words and sharing in these images. Creating has been the only way that has made sense for me to spend my shot time here, a ghost-shaped person trying to be, wondering what, if anything, comes next.