At the Crossroads of Doubt

At the crossroads of doubt,
even our most staunch truths abandon us.
We are wrapped in darkness,
lost to to wit and to reason.
The feel of our hands is confused, one to the other,
our own flesh in the darkness become a lie,
some murky beast come to torture.
Everything rings true
Everything stinks of lies
Everything cries out
Signal or Devil?
Signal or
Devil?
Signal
or -

Fear of the Night

Here's something nice and creepy for your Friday the 13th.  A little wild hog in the dark, a little Mothman, a little snowy owl, but ALL something you don't want to see following you in the dark or anywhere in the dark for that matter.  I think this might be a heebie-jeebie.  That is the scariest part, because if you were to get the heebie jeebies, that means there would be more than one.  Eep.

Bullet in the Brain Pan

This one is a sister piece to Io Pan.  It was created from the same source material, but with a very, very different outcome. Io Pan seems to be moving towards some greater cohesion whereas this piece is about violent dissolution.

On an unrelated, but related note, I recently watched I saw the Devil for the first time.  The movie is dramatically gory, but as I was discussing with my friend Josh, it is gory with a purpose.  You need to feel knee deep in blood by the end of that movie.  I feel as though that kind of aesthetic applies to my pieces like this.  This piece is difficult for me to look at because it should be.  I feel I need to make a counterpoint here.  The movie Hostel and those of a similar make like the SAW series, are simply torture porn to me.  I Saw the Devil is a story about Revenge and all that it entails.  In Hostel, we are watching torture with no other overtures or elements.  In I saw the Devil the director takes you through the horror of the situation to bring you to an ultimate point of tragedy.

I guess I'm justifying a bit here because I was nervous about this piece from the moment I created it.  I'm not afraid of gore and the visceral reaction it evokes from me, but there is a line.  I do not want my pieces to be gory for the sake of aesthetic violence.  I guess my question becomes then...Where is the line?

{Digital images manipulated in Photoshop}

Suicide Set Part I: Panic

In Mid-November of 1998 I attempted suicide by swallowing a bottle of muscle relaxers.  My life at the time felt completely out of my control and I felt myself sliding into darkness, but I felt powerless to stop it. I created the drawings in the suicide set just before my attempt.  I don’t remember drawing these pieces.  Looking at them now I realize that they are based on the four elements, but at the time I don’t recall intentionally directing them that way.  I was drawing more out of emotional desperation than any kind of intent.

Panic addresses my inability to communicate.  No matter how hard I tried, it seemed that my ability to verbalize my needs was stifled and choked.  The air was running out and I think I knew on some deep level that I was running out of time.  That the opportunity to fight back was quickly evaporating.  I was sliding into the final darkness and felt I had no way to stop the descent.  I felt completely powerless.

I really only understand any of this after analyzing in the years following.  During the event I felt removed from myself.  The month preceding my attempt, I felt like I was on auto pilot.  A ghost robot of myself set for self destruct.

I would like to note on the side of safety and communication that today, despite the difficulty of my current set of life circumstances, that I do not in any way feel suicidal.  It is simply that the time has come to share these pieces.

{Sharpie}