My friend Allison Moore made these big ceramic masks at Bruning Pottery for Faces for Life

She asked me to paint one for the auction.

I don't have much time, but when an art project like that happens my way I seldom can resist. So I squeezed it in. It came out really cool, but unfortunately a sleepy Ben had a bit of a run in with it and it ended up in pieces.

I should have just said oh well, and got back to studying kinesiology, but I'm a stubborn artfiend, so I called for another one and in the midst of a party I hauled out my paints and didn't stop 'til I was done.

I was in the midst of a minor emotional crisis, feeling lost and left out and I felt the need to have something to focus intensely on. The painting just poured out of me like tears. I like how startling and colorful it turned out. I think it was a good outlet for me and captures the mood I was struggling with. Sort of a rift, a shift, something splitting apart, a painful growing process and the beauty that blooms and swallows it all up. Have I lost you? That's OK, it's art, it doesn't have to make sense! As Pablo Neruda says in the movie 'Il Postino': "Poetry cannot be explained. If it is explained, it becomes banal".

You can see the split personality aspect in these sideview shots.

As for my first mask, it's living in the garden now.