Tag Archives: heroin

Artist Statements, Relapse, Stories

Buy This Painting or They’ll Put Me in Jail Where I Belong

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“Buy This Painting or They’ll Put Me in Jail Where I Belong.” 2/7/18. Acrylic paint. 24×30″.

I’ve got a new organizational system in my head…

The period of time when I was at Tranquil Shores (beginning in 2012), all the way through to my relapse at the very end of 2015: that’s what I’m calling “ROUND ONE.”

In the fall of 2017, I left Jacksonville and got clean. I think it lasted about eight months before I relapsed. That period is ROUND TWO.

In October of 2018, Wallis and I broke up for good and I got clean again. This stretch also lasted about eight months and is ROUND THREE.

In March of 2024, Juliana and I broke up, I started sublocade for the first time, and I began making art in earnest again for the first time in five years. This is Round 4. We’re IN IT NOW.

I imagine this’ll come up fairly often in my writing from here on, so I want readers to have some idea what I’m talking about.

“Buy This Painting or They’ll Put Me in Jail WHERE I BELONG” is a Round 2 painting. It’s been on the website for a while but I’d never published the statement until now. I thought about giving some extra background but I’ll just let it speak for itself. The statement is exactly what appears in the big white “STORY TIME” block on the painting.

Okay –  STORY TIME: about three years after I started making art and quit shooting heroin, 2015 was turning into 2016 and I stopped fucking with paintbrushes and went back to needles. It wasn’t long before I regretted the trade-off but that didn’t help me undo it any. By October 16th though, I was trying pretty desperately to get clean. I made a plan with my friend, Jen, who lived outside Jacksonville in Nocatee. I would go to her house to detox so that – in a weaker moment – I couldn’t just call one of my dealers to get more dope to ease the pain of withdrawal. Since I could always just get in my car and drive [to Jacksonville] though, we’d also block my car into her driveway with one of hers. (She had THREE).

I think it was my second day of detox. I was NOT FEELING WELL. Jen gave me some xanax to help sleep it off. I took one (2mg) but didn’t really feel any better. Some time later,  I took another and fell asleep. When I woke up though, I still felt pretty terrible. I decided to take two more [for a total now of 8 mg]. I got in bed and fell asleep again.

When I woke up, I was NAKED IN A JAIL CELL. So… what happened? Apparently my car wasn’t blocked in when I woke up blacked-out and (presumably) got in my car and drove off.

After I got into some clothes and in front of a judge, they said I was charged with three DUIs (for allegedly hitting three cars) AND assault on a law enforcement officer. 

But… but… but… I was trying to do good!! I was trying to get OFF drugs! I didn’t have any intention of driving anywhere! I even took steps to ensure that I couldn’t drive even if I wanted to! (Not because of anything like this; I never even imagined such a possibility. I’m a JUNKIE! Not a xanax addict. I don’t know how this shit works!) However, yeah – I get it. Knowingly or not, whatever the circumstances, I was guilty of driving under the influence and people could have been hurt as a consequence of my actions. (Unless – y’know – I was abducted from the bed and framed (WHICH IS ALSO SUPER POSSIBLE). 

I pled the charges down to one count of DUI and got six months of probation. In the first two months, I took one of the two classes they said I had to take and paid all $2,000+ of my court costs and fines or whatever. And then – with three months left on my sentence – my probation officer told me a new rule had been implemented requiring all terms of probation to be completed 45 days before the termination date. And that the other class [that I still needed to take] had no open seats until after that 45 day date. Which meant that violating my probation was now an inevitability over which I had no control. So she filed my violation right then and there and told me to watch the mailbox for “what’s next.”

A letter came. It said to come to the courthouse within 48 hours so the judge could decide what to do with me. I called a lawyer to make sure they weren’t going to arrest me on the spot. (I didn’t wanna detox in jail again). (Because – OBVIOUSLY – I’d gone back to heroin right after the initial arrest and ultra fun jail cell withdrawal). “Seems they issued the warrant yesterday,” he said. “But I just got this today!” “Sorry.”

I DON’T LIKE JAIL; I DON’T WANT TO GO TO JAIL. So for the last nine months, I’ve been “on the run.” When the cops started coming to my house looking for me too often, I left Jacksonville. Which I needed to do anyway if I was ever gonna kick heroin again. It worked. I’m four months clean now. I’ve started making art again. This will be my fifth post-relapse painting. I don’t want to turn myself in. I don’t want to go back to Jacksonville. I know myself: if I go back to Jacksonville, where all my dealers are just a phone call/stone’s throw away, I will wind up back on heroin. Could I get drugs in the city where I’ve been hiding out? Yes – OF COURSE. (I’m a PROFESSIONAL). But I have just enough willpower/self-discipline and enough good things going here that – in my weaker moments – I can be strong (enough to hold fast so long as scoring dope will require more than a single phone call). But if I get dragged back to Jacksonville, I’ll be homeless – crashing on couches of people who really don’t want me there. I’ll feel WORTHLESS and UNWANTED and HELPLESS and USELESS and HOPELESS and I WILL START SHOOTING HEROIN AGAIN.

Here’s what I would much rather do: complete the outstanding terms of my original probation and then contact the judge and make my appeal directly. I sat in her courtroom a lot. She seemed pretty reasonable; she did not want to lock people up for the fuck of it. When people were fucking up the terms of their probations – not doing shit – she would try to drag any reason out of them to justify giving them another chance. If I can satisfy my terms (taking that second class and completing fifty hours of community service – that’s all I had left) I think she’ll close my case. After all, before it was terminated, I was A MODEL PROBATIONER.

I’m scared to go somewhere to do my community service though. They’ll probably run a background check, possibly discover my active warrant, maybe have me come in only to have the cops come get me [in hindsight, this was pretty unlikely/paranoid] and – before I know it – I’m in jail awaiting extradition to Jacksonville, where – AS NOTED – I do not want to be for (what I feel are) pretty legitimate reasons.

But I know Carmen… We’ve gotten to be friends… Because (BEFORE I RELAPSED) she liked my art and (presumably) the fact that it’s all about my mental illness/borderline personality disorder and my histories with heroin and codependency and girls and BAD BEHAVIOR. And my constant fucking struggle to do right. And feel okay. And she has a fucking non-profit that’s all about art programs and mental health. That’s MY FUCKING JAM. (I only started making art because I was forced at knifepoint while in inpatient rehab for sixteen years). (Okay – it was only two years but whatever).

So, non-profits can dole out community service hours… Abridged conversation: “Yo, Carmen – what could I do for ‘I Still Matter’ to get community service hours?” “Paint something we can auction off at our next event and write a statement about why you support I Still Matter.”

In rehab, when they first told me I had to participate in “expressive art therapy,” I thought it was a contemptible joke. “I can’t keep a needle out of my arm and you want me to fucking COLOR? Go fuck yourselves.” But as I was worn down by failure and frustration and misery and just wanting a life other than the one I had, I stopped fighting and I started just trying to do whatever I was told. I started to make art. I was really bad at it. But something interesting happened. At the end of each art therapy sessions, we’d go around the room and talk about what we’d made – and when it’d be my turn to share, I’d talk about my piece and how I was feeling, and how those feelings were reflected and represented in whatever I’d drawn/painted/written. And people laughed. Or they cried. Or they smiled and wanted to hug me. Or they just told me how much they related to and/or how much they appreciated what I was saying. They liked the things I was making. And then something really interesting happened: I started to feel good about what I was doing. I started to develop SELF-ESTEEM. And for the first time in longer than I could remember, I didn’t wanna die anymore. And I was actually excited about living. I was finally able to envision a life for myself that I could enjoy (and that wouldn’t require heroin just to get me through each day). 

When I finally got out of rehab, they told me I needed to get a job. I had a law degree from Georgetown but I didn’t want any of that. I just wanted to PAINT FUNNY FACES AND SCRIBBLE ABOUT MY FEELINGS. So that’s what I did. And, before long, I was making enough [money] from art alone to support myself and build a new life. Now, OBVIOUSLY, SOMETHING WENT WRONG ALONG THE WAY (three years later). But that’s another (really fucked up) story; I don’t think anyone could’ve gone through what I did before I relapsed and NOT kill themselves or otherwise self-destruct. It’s okay that I relapsed. And now I’m rebuilding. I’m getting back to what made my life the kind of life I want to live. I’m getting back to art. Art is what saved me the first time and it’s what’s saving me this second time. ‘I Still Matter’ is important because it can do for people what Tranquil Shores [my third treatment center] and expressive art therapy did for me. It can turn broken people into something better. It can turn cautionary tales into inspirational stories. It can uncover talents and aptitudes that people never knew they had. It can radically change lives. Or – at the very least – it gives people like me something nice to do for a little while. A safe, welcoming place to go and something to do (not drugs) that can silence the anxiety, even if only for a short while. It offers a respite from the monsters that live in our heads. AND – in this particular instance – it can get me some community service hours to help sway the court’s opinion in my favor.

So, please, if it’s not asking too much…: BUY THIS PAINTING OR THEY’LL PUT ME IN JAIL WHERE I BELONG.

I haven’t spoken to Carmen in some time but – while I did eventually/successfully use this painting to satisfy the terms of my probation – I don’t think it was ever actually auctioned off. If you’d like to purchase it (and support a non-profit art/mental health organization in doing so) I’d imagine that can be arranged. I also have 12×16″ signed, hand-numbered prints for sale. Get in touch if you’re interested in either.

Current Journal, Journals, Relapse

Toxic grey dope and spraying morphine up the butts of loved ones

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I’m not even getting high. Either my tolerance is too high or the dope in this town is too shitty. For a while there, I was getting shit ten times better than anything else I’ve found in Jacksonville but that shit hit me less and less as my tolerance went up and, once the package ran out, the dealers behind it re-upped with this dark grey garbage. Not only do I have to do a shit ton to feel anything but it doesn’t even feel like a heroin high. It’s closer to a Dilaudid high but not as pleasant. There’s absolutely no euphoria, just a strange tight sensation in my skull and my jaw, coupled with light-headedness and – yeah – its one positive attribute is that I can fall asleep after I shoot enough of it. But that’s leaving out the worst part. Anytime I’ve done a shot that was strong enough to feel – before those slightly positive effects kick in – there’s another set of sensations that storms across my body. As the blood flows up my arm back to my heart and is pumped out to the rest of my body, I start to itch. Not an acceptable heroin itch but what morphs into an intense burning sensation. It hurts. Badly. It starts in my head and my chest and spreads to my hands and sometimes my feet. It is, to say the least, unpleasant. The only thing I can compare it to is liquid non-injectable morphine, intended for oral consumption. Like many drugs that are NOT formulated for injection, it fucking hurts if you inject it. (And – to those of you that found this page because you’re Googling, “Can I inject liquid morphine?” The answer is “Yes, but it will hurt and there’s no fucking way you’re going to find a syringe big enough to inject enough in a single hit to stand any chance of actually getting high. So don’t do it. Drink it or have a loved one fill their mouth and spray it up your butthole with a straw; it’s not strong stuff and the bioavailability is highest when absorbed – um – you know… through the butt).

And here I was thinking that I’m of no use to anyone ever since I fell off, started using again, stopped producing anything of any value, and went from aspirational figure to cautionary tale. But here I am, educating the masses on anal morphine.

So where was I? The grey dope. It was awful. It hurt to inject it. And no one seemed to be able to find anything that was any better.

Fuck this. I can’t fucking take it anymore. I quit. I’m not playing this game. I’m not going to struggle to scrape up hundreds of dollars everyday just to feel sort of okay and keep myself from going into withdrawal.

Hey, withdrawal! Come on, let’s go. Bring it on. I’m ready for you.

I didn’t shoot any more dope that day. I felt fine. The dope was still in my system. It’s not unusual for me to be able to go 24 hours before the withdrawal symptoms start.

I didn’t shoot any more dope the next day. I still felt… mostly fine. It was strange that I hadn’t started withdrawal but…

I didn’t shoot any dope the next day. And still I was fine! If you’ve got a dope habit, you’re going to start experiencing withdrawal within 48 hours of quitting. It’s the same with virtually ever opiate and opioid. Three days off dope without consequences didn’t make any sense.

Day Four: STILL NO WITHDRAWAL. Alright, so it’s clear what’s happening, I said to myself. I thought I wasn’t getting high because my tolerance was through the roof. In reality, I must have been getting dope of gradually decreasing strength/quality. Wow. I had weened myself off of heroin already without even realizing it. I had been shooting fucking dust for who knows how long. After all, if there was any dope in the shit I had been shooting up, I’d have quite a tolerance and dependence and be SICK AS FUCK right now.

On the fifth day, I finally got out of bed, fully confident that I could face the day without getting sick. I showered, dressed, and walked outside. It was hot and it was miserable but I was really doing it. I was facing the world again. It had been quite a fucking while. I felt good about myself. As I walked to nowhere in particular, I thought about the things I needed to do to get my life straight. I’d need to hire a lawyer to get my current legal situation sorted out (did you guys know I’m currently wanted by the police? Hooray!), I’d need to start making art again or else find a real fucking job…. two prospects that were equally disheartening given my fears about my sparkling internet reputation these days. No one is ever gonna hire me, I thought. No one is ever gonna wanna host an exhibition of my art at their gallery. I’m fucked no matter what I do. I’m fucking hopeless. I suddenly remembered why I’ve spent the last year and a half in a dark room with a needle, and I was defeated. I broke down into tears. Getting clean was the easy part (especially this time). But what the fuck am I gonna do even if I am clean? What’s the point of getting clean? I have nothing to live for. Half of the world wants me dead because they think I’m a fucking rapist and while they’re wrong about why I should kill myself, I still agree that their final conclusion is ultimately correct.

I went back home to Wallis who suggested that I take a Suboxone. It’s primarily used to treat the physical symptoms of opioid withdrawal but it certainly helps with the mental/emotional symptoms as well.

Now, here’s the thing: When taken orally as intended, the only active ingredient in Suboxone is buprenorphine – a “partial opioid agonist.” The “agonist” part means is that it interacts with the same receptors in your brain as heroin and other opiates. “Partial” means that it’s not going to interact to the same extent as heroin (a “full agonist”) so it’ll keep you from going into withdrawal if you’re heroin-dependent, but it won’t get you high. Here’s the problem with Suboxone: the buprenorphine doesn’t just crowd around the receptors of your brain alongside the other opiates that are already hanging out there; it kicks the rest of them out of the fucking party. For this reason, an addict needs to wait 24-48 hours after their last hit of heroin, when the withdrawal is already starting, before Suboxone can be safely taken. If taken before the heroin has begun to abandon your body’s opiate receptors, rather than gently transitioning your body off of heroin and onto buprenorphine (and thus relieving most symptoms of opiate withdrawal) the Suboxone kicks the other opiates to the curb and – by itself, at this early stage in the game – is insufficient to keep withdrawal symptoms at bay. Worse still, it doesn’t just fail to alleviate withdrawal, it actually kicks your body into a state known as “precipitated withdrawal,” which for all intents and purposes, could more accurately be described as “SUPER KICK YOUR ASS MAKE YOU WANT TO FUCKING DIE THIS IS THE WORST PAIN I’VE EVER FELT WITHDRAWAL.”

But this wasn’t an issue for me, you see. I was already five days clean off dope. 24-48 hours? I scoff at your 48 hours, I’ve got over a HUNDRED. At this point, not only is it safe to take Suboxone but I might even be able to catch just the slightest buzz off of it. If nothing else, it’s going to trigger the same chemicals in my brain (most notably dopamine) as the heroin was and it’s going to help me to stop fucking crying. It’s gonna make me feel better.

I put the strip of Suboxone under my tongue and crawled back into bed to let it dissolve and comfort me. Only… I wasn’t starting to feel any better. Shit, I actually feel a little worse. And wait… what’s that familiar creeping sensation… that mentholated feeling coming over my body that I’ve only felt twice before in my life….

Oh fuck… my body is falling into precipitated withdrawal. FUCK.

Buckets of sweat began flowing from my body. I was freezing cold and simultaneously burning up. My stomach is in knots. I can’t fucking move. Everything hurts.

Now, I’m not gonna play this shit up worse than it was. Of my three episodes of precipitated withdrawal, this one was the least severe. The worst of the symptoms – when your body evacuates every last particle of waste from your dilated asshole – only to then continue with buckets of water until you’re absolutely emergency-room-level dehydrated – and for the coup de grace, some kind of bilious liquid that burns as it squirts and drops incessantly from your asshole over the course of the next two hours – I didn’t experience that this time. I felt like it was coming all along but I clenched as tight as I could and was able to keep it at bay. The same went for vomiting. I had an almost uncontrollable urge to throw up but I kept my throat clenched, knowing that if I started throwing up, I’d likely be unable to stop for some time. Even still, I was not well and it wasn’t long before I had Wallis dial up a familiar number for me so that I could politely request that someone bring me some of that awful dark grey garbage that I had so recently decided was as benign and impotent as sand.

After enough time had passed and I had injected enough of that dark grey poison, I started to feel better and began considering just exactly what the fuck had just happened to me.

And here’s the conclusion I’ve reached, boys and girls: There are all kinds of opiates, both natural and synthetic (opioids), under the sun. Virtually all of them share one thing in common though: the speed at which they depart they body. It’s true that some may take a little longer than heroin (and some take a little less time) but they’re all pretty close, with one exception: methadone. Methadone doesn’t begin to take off until 5 to 7 days after an addict’s last dose. However, in this glorious digital age, we’re no longer limited to the opioids of our parents’ generation. On the other side of the Pacific Ocean, kids are playing with chemicals and – essentially – inventing new opioids, to sell on the streets as a cheaper alternative to heroin. Some of these could theoretically be more analogous to methadone than they are to heroin. So, it seems that my dark grey garbage powder either contains methadone or else some other new toxic fucking opioid. I’ve taken methadone plenty of times but never had it in a concentrated powder formulation so I’m not sure if that’s absolutely what it is that I’ve been using. If anyone out there can tell me, does methadone BURN LIKE A MOTHERFUCKER when injected in high doses? If so, then it seems I’ve been injecting methadone. If it doesn’t, then I’m shooting up something else with a super long half-life. Something with some toxic non-injectable ingredient or cutting agent that makes my fucking blood hurt.

You know, from a capitalist point-of-view, this really is quite brilliant. A withdrawal that takes longer to start is also going to take longer to end. If you were a drug dealer, would you rather sell someone something that – if they stop taking it – it’s going to cause them pain for a week before they feel relatively okay? Or something that ensures it’ll be closer to two weeks (or possibly longer) before they’re in the clear? After all, the fact that one can go longer between shots on this stuff is of little consequence. Anyone that’s actively addicted and shooting up is always going to struggle to shoot up any less than “as often as possible.” It’s only when an addict tries to quit that the long half-life is of any benefit or consequence – but even then, it’s just delaying the inevitable and then stretching it out over a longer period of time.

So that’s where I’m at now. I’m back on my shitty dark grey dope, working up the courage to quit again, knowing that it’s going to be the most protracted detox of my life. I’ve got my reasons for holding off for now and not getting started just yet (and they’re nothing fucking positive) but I’m also starting to get ideas for how I might actually be able to have a life that I can stand one day (soon, I hope). I’ve got just a little bit of hope for the first time in a long time. And I’m writing honestly on my blog again, which is never a bad thing. It’s a good sign that I’m at least starting to feel a little bit like me again.

Anybody that’s got anything shitty to say about any of that can fuck right off. I know who I am, I know what I’m not, and if I’m gonna hate myself, it’s gonna be for the right fucking reasons. But I feel okay today. (Right now anyway). Oh – and for what it’s worth, I do have a pocket full of dope and I’ve been awake since 7AM, but I haven’t shot up since last night. Whether you think so or not, that’s pretty fucking good. I had things I wanted to do before I shot up and I’ve been doing them all day. I don’t care how petty or little it is, I’m proud knowing that it’s 3PM and I haven’t put a needle in my arm.

(Yet).

Artist Statements

Suicide Stitches

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If it’s been a while since you’ve checked in with me, I have some bad news. You know how I used to be that heroin addict who got (and stayed) clean by making art? Well, sometime last year that all fell apart. (And this year, I’ve really gone downhill).

Twice this year, I’ve made serious plans to detox from heroin, get my life back on track, and start painting and writing again. Both times, ended disastrously but – in this entry – I’ll be focusing on the first. (Details of the more recent incident are in two blog entries: the first was written more manically upon my release from jail; the second with greater reflection the following evening).

It’s not generally a great idea for two people in the depths of addiction to be in a relationship together. If one is feeling weak and wants to use, it’s easy for the other to be dragged down right along with them. Regarding, my girlfriend and I, our relationship worked for quite some time because I already had a couple years of clean time racked up when we met. I was able to help her get and stay clean for about a year. When we relapsed together though, things went downhill. Nevertheless, having been together and having been able to successfully stay clean for so long, we didn’t think that we needed to separate. We had used together but there was no reason we couldn’t once again be clean together. Detox is painful, however. Especially in those first few days. I might be able to handle my own symptoms but seeing Wallis in that much pain really hurts me. During previous attempts to detox, as soon as I’d get the slightest inkling that it might be more than she could stand, I couldn’t help myself from going out and getting more heroin to make her feel better. After all, it’s not as if one dose in the middle of a detox is a nail in the coffin. That’s what titration is all about. You can always reason with yourself that one last hit, halfway into a detox period, will cure the worst of your symptoms and help you coast the rest of the way to the finish line.

But that “one last hit” all too often does not, in fact, retain its status as the last hit. You convince yourself that “just one more” will be okay. And then another. And another. And then you’re back to where you started.

We decided that we should detox separately to make it easier on each other. Wallis made plans to detox in Gainesville. I was to stay home in Jacksonville.

As anyone who’s ever detoxed from opiates will tell you, the best medicines to help ease you through the process are benzodiazepines. Xanax. Klonopin. Ativan. Those ones. While these drugs have an immense potential for recreational abuse, they’re not something that we’d ever otherwise take. We did, however, procure some for our detox.

Unfortunately, I have a track record of strange behavior while under the influence of these drugs. Well, I do now. Up until this point, there had only been one previous incident. When I took too many and became erratic and suicidal.  And that’s exactly what happened this time around.

We began our detox the night of August 16th together. Wallis was to leave sometime the following afternoon but when I woke up, she was gone and I was confused. Already under the influence of the drug from the night before, I couldn’t understand what was happening. She had invited one of our friends to come over to be there for me when I woke up, but it didn’t make any difference.

I’m not the sort of person that breaks things when I lose my temper. I’ve never thrown a phone at a wall or anything like that. But under the influence of too many benzodiazepines, this did not hold true. I broke virtually every one of my possessions. Both of my televisions. My MacBook Air. My iPhone. And then I went around the house, from painting to painting, slashing at my canvases and smashing or shattering all of my frames.

Then I left the house, procured a large amount of heroin, went somewhere that I presumed I wouldn’t be found for at least several hours, and – after swallowing the rest of my benzos – injected what I presumed would be enough heroin to kill me.

When I woke up in a haze in the hospital three or four days later, I discovered that I had not been discovered hours after my intendedly-lethal injection. I was discovered almost immediately and thus my life was able to be saved.

Upon release from the hospital approximately one week after the overdose, I was no longer under the agitating effects of any drugs but I was in no better shape mentally. I began racing around town, trying to procure the money I’d need to buy enough heroin to once again attempt to kill myself. It wasn’t long before a suspicious and concerned Wallis (who I had spoken to on the phone at some point) alerted the police. They found me and took me into custody before I could try anything. I’ve been hospitalized often enough for suicidal behavior that I know what to say to doctors to procure my own early release though. I was back out on the street again the very next day but, fortunately, had calmed my mind and was no longer suicidal. I recommitted to getting clean, picking back up with my art and writing, and getting my life back on track.

As time has shown, it turns out that I wasn’t quite ready. I was not able to stay clean successfully for much more than a week or so. Even still, I was able to get my head clear for long enough to do something. I began sewing and repairing my damaged paintings. These would become what I’m now referring to as my “Suicide Stitches” series.

When I make art, I don’t plan very much ahead. I kind of just let the images take shape on their own. If I make a mistake – some mark that’s somehow other than I intended it to appear – I don’t correct it. I embrace it. “That’s how it’s supposed to be,” I tell myself. I find a way to rearrange my ideas about how the painting should look. The same is the case with my Suicide Stitches paintings. These pieces are not “damaged”; they don’t have rips or holes in them. This is how these paintings were always meant to be. Each one of my paintings and drawings tells a story and those stories are usually all about my emotional and mental state at the time I’m working on each one. My Suicide Stitches paintings tell those stories, plus one more: the story of August 17, 2016. The story of the day I lost my mind and almost ended my life.

The first of these paintings that I stitched up has already sold. In fact, it was stitched up because it was sold. It was the first good news I had gotten in quite a while. Through Instagram, I got a message from reality TV star, Scott Disick. He wanted one of my pieces and, more than that, he wanted to help promote my art. That opportunity was the first spark I’d had in a great while to actually do something productive. And the publicity and consequent sales I’m expecting are what’s motivating me to get back to work right now. (Although I do have other similarly exciting opportunities also in the works at this point). That first painting has been shipped to Scott but the other Suicide Stitches paintings are still available for purchase. For pricing (on both the originals as well as limited edition hand-numbered/signed prints), contact my new agent, Jennifer Levin of newly formed agency, Blow the Dust. (Jen’s last enterprise is currently on Forbes’ list of America’s Most Promising Companies, so I’m pretty amped on this new partnership). Blow the Dust’s website is still very much a work in progress but it’s already been launched with a webstore featuring some of my prints and one of my original paintings. It should actually be operational by sometime this week. Check it out.

While the pieces have not yet been rephotographed since their Suicide Stitches updates, you can get the general idea from a couple photos I snapped quickly with my iPhone in my blog entry from October 8th. Six of the seven paintings in the series are as follows:

The final (seventh) painting in the series (and only one not pictured here) also happens to be the largest, newest, (most expensive) and my favorite of the whole lot. It’s called “The World Revolves Around Me.” For more information on (and images of) that piece, like the others, just get in touch.

For what it’s worth, I’d like to note that (at the time of this posting) I currently have 13 days clean (a record for me so far in 2016) and I plan on that number continuing to climb through the year’s end. I’d also like to note that money from the sales of my work no longer goes directly to me – a safety measure taken in case of a potential relapse.

Artist Statements, Expressive

I’m Getting Really Sick of Not Being Famous

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"I'm Getting Really Sick of Not Being Famous." 3/31/15. Acrylic paint. 48x24".
“I’m Getting Really Sick of Not Being Famous.” 3/31/15. Acrylic paint. 48×24″.

I can’t remember the last time I wrote a statement for one of my pieces but this painting never got one. A year later, here I go…

Things were going well. I was making thousands of dollars every month, I was getting booked at galleries, I was traveling the country with a girl with whom I was deeply in love, and I still wasn’t happy. (Or happy enough).

In March, I had an exhibition at Instinct in Minneapolis. Everyday – to help promote the exhibit and to make extra money selling prints – I’d set up on the sidewalk in front of the gallery with an easel, working on this, my next painting.

Some days, I didn’t wanna go set up though and spend twelve hours on the street, painting. Other days, I was frustrated having to park and carry my supplies too far away (or parking closer – illegally – and having to keep an eye over my shoulder for tow trucks all day). I was making money just for making art but I was actually having to work for it.

Fuck that.

I wanted to paint in some studio or at home. I wanted to finish a painting and know that there were already galleries lined up to take them or collectors ready to buy them the moment each was finished. “I’m fucking brilliant!” (Right?) “My genius should be enough to generate an income all on its own! This should be easier.”

Alright, so maybe my thinking wasn’t quite that arrogant but … you know … pretty much.

Look – I don’t like myself a whole lotta the time and I could expand on that for days but – when it comes to my art – I know that it’s great. As a human being, I’m seriously flawed, but those same flaws (and my willingness to bare them so candidly and honestly) is what overwhelmingly/primarily accounts for the power and singularity of my art and is the reason I’ve sold as much of it as I have. I’ve hated so many things about me for long enough that I’m okay with being unapologetically proud of the art I’ve created.

I figured that once I got wide enough exposure and enough people knew about my art (once I was famous) my life would be a whole lot easier. No more worrying about bills. Lots of attention (to fill the empty void where my soul should live). You know: FAME. Money. Whatever.

Admittedly, that might be a little naive but – fuck it – I was getting really sick of having to work and I was getting really sick of not being famous.

Beyond all that, there’s a passage of smaller text hidden in the canvas that sort of jumps all over the place. I wrote about feeling fat and self-conscious and tugging at my clothes, pulling them straight a million times a day (even though I was well underweight at that point (and probably still am)). I wrote about other frustrations and how they made me want to use heroin, even though I’d been clean forever at that point and had gained so much to lose. And I wrote about how I didn’t know what I was doing wrong but that I was going to keep trying anyway, finding new approaches if necessary.

Some of the "suicide stitches" on this painting.
Some of the “suicide stitches” in this painting.

Like most of my work, this painting is meant to be funny and it’s supposed to seem dense and trivial but its humor is born of sincere frustration, genuine sadness, hopelessness, and a sense of uncertainty. And like a lot of the optimism I inject into my work, what little is here is mostly for my own benefit and not the painting’s. It’s forced with the hope that it will take hold.

And I think it did take hold for a while but ultimately, about a year after finishing this piece, I did cave and give in to heroin, letting it replace art as my full-time occupation. And seven months into that, in a state of drug-induced psychosis, I slashed away at this painting (and several others) shortly before eating an absurd quantity of Xanax and Klonopin and injecting an intentionally strong shot of heroin with the intention of killing myself. I’m not sure why I didn’t want the art to outlive me but the damage didn’t turn out to be all that bad anyway and I, myself, woke up in the hospital a few days later.

More "suicide stitches" (which are actually mint waxed dental floss).
More “suicide stitches” (which are actually mint waxed dental floss).

That was six weeks ago and I’m now in the process of stitching up all of the slashes I put into my paintings. This is the first I’ve finished sewing up which makes it the first in what I’m calling my “Suicide Stitches” series of paintings. More on that in another blog entry/post soon to follow.

Journals, Status Update, Stories, Travelogue

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Before we start, here’s a vocabulary lesson for normal people: Vivitrol is an injection you can get to block the euphoric effects of heroin for a month. Without the incentive of a high, there’s no reason to shoot up. So long as you get it every 30 days, you’ll stay clean. Dilaudid is a prescription opiate. Like Oxycodone, you shoot it up and it feels just like heroin.

A couple other points: I didn’t proofread this shit. I didn’t edit it, I didn’t “punch it up.” I just typed it. “Natalie” and “Joseph” are fake names because what-the-fuck-ever. People don’t always like it when they make it into my stories.

And with no further ado…

 

I didn’t wanna take Natalie to get her Vivitrol shot. It’d be an eight-hour roundtrip and if she couldn’t be trusted to go get it herself, then what’s the point anyway? What would I really be accomplishing, keeping a girl clean who didn’t wanna be clean? I felt like I owed it to her mom though and I like to help. Being useful to someone else makes me feel a little better about myself and I could use that lately.

I never got the chance. Natalie called me on Wednesday night. She couldn’t get the Vivitrol shot on Thursday as planned because (surprise!) she had been on drugs the whole time. You need a few days clean before you get the shot and she didn’t have ‘em. What she did have was a meeting with her probation officer in the morning. If she pissed dirty, she’d be going to jail. She wanted me to drive down to Boynton to help. “What can I even do for you at this point?” I asked. “I just need you,” she begged. I called her mom; she said she’d feel a lot better if I were down there. I agreed to go. My plan was to take her to the PO in the morning – to help her turn herself in. She wouldn’t do it alone but maybe I could be the support she needed to brave up and face the music. I didn’t tell Natalie that that was my plan; I just started driving and told her I was on the way.

I got to town shortly after midnight and Natalie was nowhere to be found and not answering her phone. I was really pissed off. What the fuck did I drive down here for? I pulled into a fast food parking lot, took a Seroquel, and went to sleep. Art, ambition, girls, relationships, love, sex, money, priorities, the ability to wake up in the morning and live a day worth living… Everything in my life is so screwed up lately. I’m sleeping alone in the parking lot of a Boynton Beach Checkers. Fuck my life.

I found out on the drive down that Natalie had, in fact, been staying at a halfway house but what she had left out is that it was one of those shithouse operations that lets you share a room with your junkie boyfriend/girlfriend. Drug-addled couples never get clean together. Never. She wouldn’t give me the address for the house because her boyfriend is the jealous type (Natalie’s “not allowed” to be my friend on Facebook, for example). She didn’t want any kind of confrontation should he be home when I came to pick her up. So she kept me on the hook. “I’m on my way,” “Where are you? I’ll meet you there,” “Just another thirty minutes” – this went on all day from 8AM ‘til 2PM when she finally showed up at my friend Joseph’s house, where I had been hanging out, waiting on her.

There was no way she was going to turn herself in, she said. She wanted to go to treatment. Joseph told her about the facility he works at. “They can handle your PO,” he told her. I didn’t really like that idea. Natalie’s been through treatment before. At least ten times. If she went in again, we’d just be dealing with this same shit down the line when she got released. Inpatient rehab cannot save Natalie. She needs real consequences. She still doesn’t want to get clean – not really.

But Joseph and Natalie got it all worked out. The counselors at his facility were handling her PO. She’d go in there for two months and the PO would come in with papers that’d terminate Natalie’s probation. For the ten millionth time, Natalie was gonna get off the hook, beat the charges, be free to fuck up her life. What the fuck was I gonna do? What the fuck could I do? Nothing except safely transport her to detox.

The detox Natalie wanted to go to wouldn’t take her until the next morning. Her facility found another place she could go but she didn’t wanna. She wanted to spend the day/night with me first. Fine. Fair enough. I like Natalie and I’ve done this before. It’s not generally advisable to try to babysit a junkie but – like Chris Spillane – I know Natalie well enough to know that I can hold on to her. Like Chris Spillane, I know she’s not gonna straight up bolt on me and I know she’s not gonna pull anything too crazy. She had already gotten high (hence her failure to meet up with me until fourteen hours after my arrival) so she wasn’t gonna get sick before I dropped her off at detox. We left her car in Joseph’s driveway and had a mostly pleasant day together.

We went back to Joseph’s house in the morning to get her car. We couldn’t go straight to detox because Natalie had a paycheck waiting for her at work that she needed to cash so she could get cigarettes and whatever else while she was in rehab for the next two months. It was 8AM but the check wouldn’t be ready for pick up until noon. And then she started in with the bullshit. She needed to go to a friend’s house to get stuff she had left behind, she needed to go to another house to shower and get dressed, she needed to do a lot of things and it was okay with her if I just let her drive to do these things on her own. Not fucking happening. I knew what was really going on – she wanted to go get high one last time. Was I afraid, like her mom was, that she might overdose? No. Was I afraid that she might get arrested? No – because that’d be the best thing that could happen to her, in my view. But I was fucking here and it was my job to hold on to her and make sure that she got to wherever the fuck it was that she was supposed to be going. I was emotionally fucking exhausted. “I’m not letting you go off on your own to run around town doing whatever the fuck it is you’re trying to do. Back me up on this, Joseph.” “Honestly,” he said, “She’s going into treatment anyway. It doesn’t really matter if she gets high one last time. Just let her do what she’s gonna do and then you won’t have to deal with all the lies and bullshit. At least she’ll be straight with you.”

Fuck. Now I’ve got the guy who works at the treatment center telling me I should just let her get high one last time. He’s wrong but maybe he’s right. What the fuck does it matter? Why do I care if she uses again before she goes in? Maybe I’m just trying to be controlling. Maybe this would all be a lot easier if, for once, I just give in and say, “Fine.” And so we’re off to the dealer’s house.

“I’ll pay you back as soon as we get my check,” she said. Fuck. So now I’m paying for the drugs too? Great. What the fuck ever. Here. I give her the money, she hands it to the dealer, he hands her the pill (Dilaudid), and we pull away. All of this is in Natalie’s car because I’ll be damned if I’m gonna have this shit going on in my car. I’m not going to jail for this shit. This is already stupid and fucking risky enough as is. I shouldn’t be here. What the fuck is wrong with me?

We pull into the parking lot of the AA clubhouse and Natalie prepares her shot. She can’t find a vein, she can’t do her shot. “We’ve gotta go to my friend Evan’s house so he can hit me,” she says. “No, we’re not fucking doing that.” “Then you have to do it,” she says. Great. Perfect. This makes sense. So now I’m shooting this girl up in a parking lot? Of course I am. This is my stupid fucking life.

I take the needle from her and slide it into her arm, immediately finding a vein. “First time, every time,” I think to myself. What a stupid point of pride.

I pretend to throw all of her paraphernalia out the window but secretly slip it into my pocket with the exception of her rig. That, I do throw away. But I take a clean one from her glovebox and put that in my pocket. We go back to Walgreens, where we left my van, and I go in to use the bathroom. Into the bottle cap Natalie used to prep her shot, I rinse the residual powder from the cellophane she used to crush the Dilaudid. I put my needle in to her cotton and draw back. There’s no way there’s enough left in this cap (even with the added cellophane powder) for me to feel anything but I’m going to do it anyway. I shoot up and feel nothing. I go outside and find Natalie in the parking lot, arguing on her phone. I don’t tell her what I’ve done but I’m angry about it. She says her boss called and that she can’t get her check today. I’m angry about that too because now I’m not going to be reimbursed for the drugs, for the gas I put in her car, or for the food and cigarettes I bought her (something she offered as consolation when she hit me up for the drug money). And my money is tight right now. That reimbursement would’ve helped. I tell Natalie it’s time to go to detox – and not the one she wants to go to in Miami – the one in West Palm that her soon-to-be treatment facility/home wanted her to go to. She flips out threatens to call her mom, tell her I shot her up, and get my phone turned off (because I’m on their plan). That doesn’t phase me. I know I’m going to tell her mom about all of this anyway. I start to call myself and Natalie stops me. I know she doesn’t want her mom to know about any of this. She gives in and agrees to let me drive her to the detox in West Palm. At some point, I sneakily get her dealer’s number out of her cell phone. If I’m still feeling like this after I drop her off, I’ve got plans of my own. I’ve been clean for sixteen months and I don’t give a fuck. After today, I’ll leave Delray and I’ll be safe again. This will be my last rescue mission. I relapsed two summers ago when I had eleven months clean. Once I removed myself from the dangerous situation in which I relapsed, I was fine. This will be the same. I’m going to be fine.

I smoke a cigarette in front of the detox center with Natalie before we go in. At one point, some guy comes out. He’s kind of an asshole. Natalie asks if I’ll get her a few packs of cigarettes to get her through detox. I say okay because I’m a sucker like that. We check her in and I drive to the store. Before I’m back, she’s calling. “I’m outside with all my stuff. Fuck this place. Will you take me somewhere else? I don’t want to stay here. And my boss called. I can go get my check after all.” She has a lot of reasons for why she doesn’t like it and I’ve got plenty of rationalizations for why I agreed to pick her back up but the truth of the matter is that I want her to cash the check so I can get paid back.

I pick Natalie up and we start driving to her work to get the check. On the way, (surprise!) Natalie tells me she needs to use again. Of course she doesn’t. She’ll be in detox soon enough (and the detox she wanted to go to all along – the one where they’ll dose her up with so much crap that she’ll be more high than she was on the outside) but none of that matters.

In fact, nothing that happened the rest of the day matters. Sure, there are all sorts of interesting, pathetic, sordid, exciting little developments in the next few hours but it’s all bullshit and I’m tired of this story now. I’m not having fun writing this. Here are the pertinent details: Natalie and I meet up with the dealer again; I buy drugs for myself this time; Natalie goes in to detox and I stay high until my drugs are all used up two and a half days later. And now I’m four and a half days clean again. And I’m the same person I was before any of it happened. I didn’t “lose” my eighteen months of cleantime, just as I didn’t lose the eleven months of cleantime I had racked up the last time I relapsed (summer 2013).

I finished my latest painting a couple nights ago – the one I’ve been working on for just over two months. I can see now that leaving Florida to travel this year was, more often than not, not especially productive. I am not pleased with my progress in these last few months. I have not been writing as much as I should be. I am not painting as often as I should be. I am not engaging with galleries or otherwise promoting myself or advancing my career as often as I should be. September, October, and November were almost total wastes of my time. I am confused and scared. I have lost my sense of direction and my motivation. I’ve been caught up in relationships that were mostly chaotic and destructive. I’ve become preoccupied with sex, moreso than ever before. These things are not a consequence of my relapse, they were the cause of it. This has been the build-up to it. And that’s okay. I’m not upset that it happened. I don’t really even care enough to think of it as “a wake up call.” Because I still feel lost and I still don’t know what to do and that’s the same as it was before I put a needle in my arm.

It’s just a thing that happened.

Artist Statements, Expressive, Journals, Post-Treatment, Punk rock, Travelogue, Video

Have Sex With and/or Buy Art From Me

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"Have Sex With and/or Buy Art From Me." 7/1/14. Acrylic paint and duct tape on canvas. 22x28".
“Have Sex With and/or Buy Art From Me.” 7/1/14. Acrylic paint and duct tape on canvas. 22×28″.

I painted this immediately after “Something to Cry About” so a lot of the sentiment is pretty similar. Unlike that painting, the journals on this canvas are clearly visible. Three in particular.

From June 21st, in Minneapolis for the CBDS show:
Some days (today, for example) I feel like I’m slipping. Regressing. Losing it. Getting less brave. More anxious. If I’ve already peaked, then you can bet I’m gonna bottom out like never before. I won’t live in the middle. My inadequacy and self-pity are really showing here. I know it. It doesn’t elude me.

June 22nd, still in Minneapolis:
I was driving so I had time to steep in my anxiety. And to find the perfect phrasing to express it with maximum, wit, precision, and insight toward achievement of my twin goals, as ever, of course: HAVE SEX WITH AND/OR BUY ART FROM ME. ‘Cause that’s gonna fix me. That’s the validation I need to know that I’m okay. Why have I been getting so down on myself lately? I’m scared that I’m in a rut – not creatively – but these last two months there’ve been no developments, big breaks, or major sales / floods of income. And it hasn’t lit a fire under me. I’ve grown weaker, timid. I hit galleries but I don’t storm them with a painting and my confidence. I meekly hand over a card – and only if they engage with me. I set up to sell prints but I don’t draw people to me. I wait for them. It’s the same lately with girls. I do the bare minimum to spark interest and then nothing. I let it go nowhere. Because I know that’s where it’ll end anyway. Because I have no interest in anyone but myself. I just want to be loved. I want someone to make me feel okay. (Until I get that and dismiss it). And the girls I talk to might love my art but that doesn’t necessarily translate to any interest in or affinity for me personally. I CAN RELATE.

Finally, July 1st, in Cincinnati:
I withdrew a thousand dollars from my bank account this morning to buy heroin and a gun. So you’ll have to forgive me for not giving a shit about the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby ruling.

Between their content and my statement for “Something to Cry About,” there’s not much to add regarding the first two journals . The details of the third probably warrant some explanation, even though I feel it’s so trivial and boring that I’d really rather not (but, consequently, feel like I should).

I was all set to join up with Rational Anthem as they toured out to California. I’d set up at their shows each night to sell prints, as a means to finance my own trip out west. It made more sense than just driving straight out and I’d get to spend some time with my friends. I met up with them in Lexington on the 30th though and – before the night was over – Hembrough told me we’d need to sit down and talk at some point about the logistics of our tour together out west. What was there to discuss, I thought. Rational would drive in their van, Spillane and I would drive in mine, and that was that. If they had room for us to stay the night wherever they were staying, we’d take them up on it. If not, we’d find our own place to sleep. I know I overreacted but the way Hembrough had put it (“we need to talk”) made me feel like maybe I wasn’t welcome after all – like I was some kind of a burden. It hurt my feelings at a time when my feelings weren’t doing too great anyway. He and Spillane are my two best friends in the world but it sounded like he was less excited to have me along than he was concerned. I suddenly felt like there was no place for me in the world. I went to bed, hoping to feel better in the morning. I didn’t. I asked Spillane what city he wanted me to drop him off in, told him I’d give him some money to get set up, and that I needed to “do my own thing” for a while. And that’s when I went to the bank for step one of my plan. Fortunately, it didn’t take me too long to snap out of it. As soon as it was time to actually make a serious move toward execution, I started to come to my senses. “Never mind,” I told Chris. “We’re not gonna go with Rational Anthem anymore but if you still want to travel with me for this art thing, you’re welcome to stay.” He said he did and asked where we were gonna go. “I don’t know. Let’s go buy some fucking cigarettes, get some coffee, and just see what happens.”

Nine hours later, we were getting ready to go into the Masked Intruder / Dopamines / Direct Hit! show in Cincinnati, to sell prints. I scrolled through Facebook and read my friends’ outrage over that morning’s Hobby Lobby ruling. It struck me as so tremendously trivial and absurd, especially against what felt like the now darkly comic backdrop of my morning. I told Spillane for the first time what my real plan for the day had been and then confessed to the rest of the world by means of a marker taken to my t-shirt and an Instagram shot. I started to feel a little better with my secret off my chest when who should walk up but Hembrough and Rational Anthem. (They had a show in Cincinnati that night too). We talked it all out, he assured me that I was welcome and wanted, and I went into the Masked Intruder show feeling pretty at peace with it all. The show was fun, I sold a few prints, and – after both shows were over – Spillane and I met up with the Rational and Dead North crews at some diner. As soon as we walked in, everyone sang “Happy Birthday” to me. It wasn’t my birthday; I guess they just suspected that I needed it. And I guess I did. It was silly but it made me feel really loved.

Rational Anthem are trying to raise money to buy a new tour van and are offering some really great rewards in exchange for your financial contributions. And if you donate $50 and choose “no reward,” I’ll send you a signed and numbered print of the Sammy thrashLife piece of your choice. At the very least check out the video they made, which I “storyboarded” / sort-of-directed via text message.


Check out their campaign and see if you can spot my voice anywhere else.

Artist Statements, Expressive, Journals, Status Update, Travelogue

What I Do When I’m Not on Tinder

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"What I Do When I'm Not on Tinder." 6/21/14. Ink. 11x14".
“What I Do When I’m Not on Tinder.” 6/21/14. Ink. 11×14″.

Check me out! I’m being an angry crybaby ’cause I heard second-hand that someone (that I don’t even know!) implied that I can’t really be trusted because I’m a drug addict.

You know how long it’s been since I injected drugs? You know how long it’s been since my compulsion to inject drugs inspired me to do something dishonest? Not to mention: I’m itinerant as fuck! Nobody knows me. I’m in a new city every day. I can be whoever I want each time I roll into a new city. The only reason anyone I encounter these days knows that I am/was a drug addict is ’cause I fuckin’ tell them. I wear everything on my sleeve ’cause I’m okay with who I am. I’m fuckin’ proud of who I am. Good and bad.

So fuck off with that shit.

What’s this have to do with my new piece, “What I Do When I’m Not on Tinder?” Very little! I’m just trying to kill two birds with one stone by venting and simultaneously writing a statement for a new piece. But if I wanted to contrive a connection, here it is: Even my Tinder profile introduces me to “potential matches” with an opening salvo of, “I don’t shoot heroin anymore but I still have a personality disorder. It’s nothing you’d notice most of the time.”

“What’s Tinder?” you ask. Well, you poor unfortunate soul, it’s a dating app for smartphones that matches people based on geographic proximity (“[this user] is two miles away”) and whether or not you swiped left (“nope”) or right (“like”) on their profile – which is comprised of no more than six photos and 500 characters of text. It’s superficial, shallow, and lots of fun! Once two people have swiped right on each others’ profiles, the lines of communication are open for messaging and (potentially) making plans to meet in real life. And now that Tinder’s introduced their newest feature (the hilariously-named “Tinder Moments,” a Snapchat-like feature which allows you to upload an additional photo, revealed only to your “matches” for 24 hours (who are then prompted to “like” or dismiss it by way of swipe)) it’s also become one more social-networking-avenue for a sad little boy like me to collect the validation-via-clicks for which I’m so desperate.

My mood right now is definitely corrupting my usually joyful description of Tinder. It’s shallow, superficial, and a lot of fun. It’s super speed dating. Say the wrong thing to some girl? Who cares! Just scroll down to your next match and start again! It’s totally meaningless (just like everything else in the known universe)!

I finished this drawing three weeks ago but have held off on sharing it on my website, Instagram, and Facebook until now because I only just got a proper high-res photograph of it. There was one venue through which I shared it immediately upon completion though – and it proved to be my most popular TINDER MOMENT to date!

I’m ridiculous. (And pretty okay with it).

Full disclosure: As revealed in the statement accompanying my commissioned “Bleed Blue Tatoo” piece, I’ve “started getting laid again,” am getting all the female attention I need, and have consequently been inactive on Tinder for a week or so. I’m also taking bets on how long ‘til I fall apart again and rediscover its utility. Hit me up for the current odds! Who knows? Maybe this very entry will be the spark that burns it all to the ground!