Those that know me well know that when I title a post what I did on this one that I am going into a very dark period. Both personally and artistically. So if the happy and pretty piece is posted above that will be so ironic right now. I originally painted this back in 89 in Acrylic on 1 inch thick plywood. The painting was kinda large as well, so it weighted a ton.
When I painted it, I hadn't really "discovered" the dark side of my nature yet. It was there, but I kept it buried beneath the surface, afraid people would think I was a freak if I painted what I really wanted to paint. But in 1993, it came to life.
I'm getting ready to paint a couple of "Dark" fantasy paintings, and I wanted to redo this one some first. The thing about these dark periods I go through is that they last a very long time. Usually years and I do become a very different person. It is hard to explain but if you hang around, you will see.
The last time this happened, it took a period of several years and it was the product of a lot of negative things that had happened to me. Being betrayed and lied to by the very people I love and trust is a big one. An during that period, my blood family really had it out for me. I took the rap for a lot of stupid things my mother did so she wouldn't get into trouble. She had be with a man that died, and in his will he said that as long as she was alive she could live in the house and control all the things that went with it. But after she died, the land, house and all the propriety would go to his, Lester, children. Personally I thought this was very fair of the man, considering he had only known my mom for 2 years.
At the time I was single, and my older brother and sister voted that I should live there with her, so I could do the upkeep on the land and propriety. Reluctantly I did. During this period my mom would take jewelry, guns, and anything of value to the pawn shop whenever she wanted to get drunk and I wouldn't give her the money for that. Later when these things started turning up missing she told my siblings and Lester's children that I had done it because I had a bad drug problem. At that time, I did smoke pot, but I also owned my owned carpet business and brought it about 2000 a week, so I always had plenty of money and paid all the bills around there. But for some reason, it was so easy for my brother and sister to believe all the crap my mom was putting out there. And another kicker was this had be going on for about a year before anyone asked me about it.
Once the truth all came out, i basically said "F@ck you" and have never had anything to do with my family since, except my younger sister and nieces and nephews. Needless to say, this left some pretty deep scares.
Another "truth" that hit me around that time was that i realised that every woman I dated or lived with all had children and no matter how much I loved and cared for their children, they would never care about me, except for what they could get out of me. No matter how many years we had been close, as soon as their mother and me went our separate ways, they no longer would have any thing to do with me, unless of course they wanted something. I had my chance to be a father when I was very young and dumb and blew it royally, and life would not give me a second chance.
I was raised by monsters. They never taught me the things in life that where important like family, children being married and what it really meant to make commitment's like that. Most of my youth I spent trying to get my head straighten out from all the fu*ked up things they had done to me, such as abuse. I can still remember my grandmother telling me "It's okay, he's your uncle" when I was 6 years old, and that was just the tip of the iceberg.
But all of that is years past. The part about not having children of my own really eats at me still, but I'm just to old to do anything about that now. These days, I have much worse demons to deal with. One of the biggest that really sickens me is that everyone just wants to use you. They will lie to you, pretend to be your friend, get close to you until they get what they want and then they just cut your throat and laugh in your face. If you remember a few months ago I was talking about forgiving and forgetting and trying to be a better person, well it slowly dawned on me that just opens the door for other assholes to try to f*ck you over as well. I'm telling you this because if your a wide eyed artist that thinks that working in publishing is so wonderful, it's not. The business is full of crooks, con-artist, and backstabbers. I'm not saying everyone is that way, but a lot of them are. When you do find good people to work with, you best give thanks everyday for them, because they are few and far between. Luckily for me, this year I have been dealing with some really good people, but before that it was about 50/50. There where a lot of great folks on the way up, and then there are some I would love to see get smashed by a speeding truck.
I don't know where this dark mood is going to take me, but I promise, it will be very different and it is here to stay for a good long while, perhaps the rest of my days. "May the darkness comfort you"
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