PERSON...
HAS... A.....STORY.......
I have lived 39 years of life and for a great part of it been numbed to the Needs of others, not stuff, but needs of humanity....Other's emotional needs were to me just an inconvenience. I held extremely high standards for myself, so I really could not appreciate others who didn't numb and just run away and keep going like me. I was never sad, but i didn't get to experience true joy either, I guess. I rather enjoyed my life, but there was this deep something bubbling up in me, and I knew I had to explore what it was before I exploded. I found that it was the ALIVE, deeply passionate, Deeply feeling, me that i thought had died, wanting to show me that she was still in there somewhere and she wanted out. She was tired of being held captive. I have studied artists for as far back as I can remember, and one thing I noticed was that you could put all the paintings of most of the masters and line them all up and see their lives told in their
paintings, but not mine. You would probably have had a hard time finding any resemblance to my life in my paintings, because almost all of them were created for other people according to what they wanted. I decided this year to make the rest of my life's artwork tell my own story. I know you may look at these and say "uh, these don't look like you".And I will say "I beg to differ....look closer...." You see, all of these images are of a tribe of people in a land a half a world away from me, called Mozambique.... Earlier this year, I watched a documentary by Anthony Bourdain about Mozambique, and it really impressed me about these people. I loved their story, and after that it seemed like i heard it everywhere, i saw it everywhere, and I felt like it was calling me. I started looking up to see if there were jobs there, maybe I was supposed to go there and work, or do something with these people, but turned up nothing. I still couldn't stop thinking about them, so I set out to do what only I know, PAINT THEM.
I have taught students for 6-7 years how to draw portraits, but I have never done one of myself until now, or anybody else seriously. I have done a few abstract portraits just for fun, but I never really wanted to look into their eyes or my own because I was
"AFRAID" Yep, there I said it, I was afraid that their needs were too great, their pain more than I could comfort, and their joy, maybe more than what i would allow myself, so either way I didn't want to look that close. This time, I made myself look, study them, and what I realized was that i saw the trepidation in their eyes, just like mine when I don't know what is around the corner, and I could hear their bones rattling just like mine, on cold nights, and I could feel their loneliness as they sit in the shadows waiting and hoping to be rescued, just like I have. I could hear their bellies rumbling and know that hunger, just like I have felt. I could feel the giddiness that swells up in them when they hear their babies laugh, just like in me, I look at them and I see that their blood is just the same as mine, when they bleed, and it courses through the same veins as mine, and leads to the same heart that beats inside of me, They are ME.... half a world away in a place with different buildings, and a different landscape, but they are ME.... We are the same. I don't want to help them, I want to band with them and share this world with them, I want to know 
their stories, i want to know more....
FOR THE LOVE OF HUMANITY...
(that is the name of the next series...look for it..)
no less or better than.....
Until we meet again.....
