"The darker
your past,
the brighter
your light will
shine against it."
Michael Lamartina
Ever since I was a little boy, I wanted to be an artist. I remember telling my fifth grade teacher that I wanted to be an abstract artist even though I had no clue what abstract truly meant. It seems that at that point, life had a different plan in store for me other than the one I was dreaming of that day. Who could have known that such a bright, promising life was about to be thoroughly immersed into such a suffocating darkness surrounded by demons that were so utterly heartless.
Prison bars
And youth begotten scars
Dirty cells
And the pressure that swells
Fading dreams
And distant screams
But some how I sense
It isn’t as bad as it seems
MY WORLD: I grew up in Baltimore, started smoking weed when I was five, did heroin and cocaine when I was twelve, and things got crazy real fast. I did dope for twenty-five years, spent a huge portion of that time in detox, rehab' and mostly prison.I've always loved art. In the darkest moments of my life, God provided me a saving grace to ease the pain of my suffering through art. I am self taught. I started writing poetry when I was very young to help me deal with the despair that I was feeling. I started painting in prison for similar reasons. Art transports me to another realm where all the pain and misery simply evanesce into oblivion. Art served as a means for me to scream loudly to God and the world that I was dying inside. I knew that God was listening, but it seemed as if no one else cared a bit. Now, art is a means for me to roar even louder that I am free, and a beautiful, redeemed child of the most high God.
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Through art, God has shown me a way to a higher place. For decades my life was drowning in an ocean of despair and darkness, and it seemed that at any moment I would drown and die, which, at times, did not seem so bad. The first time I did heroin and cocaine, I was 12 years old; that was my point of departure to embark on an inexorable course toward self annihilation.
During my journey, life was infernal and, at times, I was nearly utterly hopeless, but not completely; something inside compelled me to fight on, even though it seemed as if the demons had finally caught up to me and were about to rip me to shreds: an inexplicable hope. I could never understand it, the hope, yet it was there, prominent and very tangible. It is only through the process of creating a painting or writing a poem that God has enabled me to gain a better understanding of this seemingly crazy hope. The process of creating so closely mirrors the evolution of an individuals life. At first, things go fairly smooth, not for all of course, but for some, and then the madness begins; but if we are able to find the strength to endure the madness, we come out stronger and a masterpiece starts to manifest. There are those who weren’t able, for one reason or another, to find the strength, my heart goes out to them. I have a mother, brother and many, many other family members whose lives are being ravaged by the disease of addiction. They haven't been able to find the strength to claw their way out of that pit yet, but my sincere prayer and hope is that they do, but until then, I pledge my undying love to all of them and everyone who is hurting, and will do all I am able to help along the way regardless of whats going on.