The best part of making was before I could see the voices. Never knew fame would make me gun shy. Pages under spotlights. Only moments are brush strokes with pages waiting to see the ink spread. Fixed on figures of nipples and lips in red. Sketchbooks are time machines. Like, yearbooks for my hand's imagination.
Had so many videos, had so many paintings, got one book. A jello mold of doings and beings. Will be a giant in ink and paint.
Painter Files story,
Remembered the first death in Art School. Andrew was short with a pointy nose and a love for sweaters. We sat together in Art 202. He wanted to be a friend so bad but I was girl crazy and always getting into fights. Last day I saw him he was in brown corduroys with a green cardigan that was two sizes big. I found out later it was his Dad's. He asked me about comic books and Courtney Love 94. He came out to me as Bi the day the hurricane about five months before. That day was my last day before I ran out of money to keep taking classes for the year. We sat at the tables outside the Quad on newspapers because of the rain. He smoked a cigarette and his rings chirped against each other like wind chimes. I wish we had painted and drawn tattoos for his girlfriend but I didn't. He looked one way and I ghosted like I did in that time and I never saw him alive after that.
The tale of Painters and drugs is old like hard candy in dishes under lamps. Most of us are reckless but some of us are dangerous. Then you add the part where no one knows if they will be able to afford to stay in art school and panic punches.
I worked all Summer to save up for Fall classes. The Summer was a razor cutting my throat slowly. Working at a bookstore where kids left Kharmasutra's pages up in the Cat in the Hat section. Super classy. Bit of a soul killer. Summer finds an end and I find six checks.
Meet my best friend that year in a crafts class.
Drew was found by his mom and was buried at the beginning of that July. His girlfriend sat with us in the quad for a week silent and then moved back to South Carolina. The school felt so dark and rainy every day after that until December.
Even the paint colors were dark. Sat in this basement studio and painted my first show. Played with rhythm textures. Learned and unlearned the guitar keys. Slept outside a bar in a chair, read my first sad book all by my self, and drew a tattoo... life changed.
