This 16"x20" Prismacolor colored pencil and Dr Ph Martin Watercolor drawing on Arches paper features a three headed ocelot being engulfed by poisonous morning glories. 

How does a broken person fix a broken world? In the poorly named self help book, The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself by Michael A. Singer warns that when we linger in either the past or the future we aren't fully present. Depression and anxiety are an extreme version of this. Though the path to get there takes many forms, the summarized solution is instead to be mindful, to move through events and not to dwell. My work is about the ability to look at something that isn’t easy to look at. Something that’s inside of me, inside of you. Animals are a softer blow. According to the better named book, The Mindful Way through Depression by Mark Williams, people who suffer from depression have very similar thoughts, because those types of thoughts are a symptom of depression, much like a runny nose is a symptom of a cold. Picture it, thousands of people around the world with depression sitting at home alone at the same time having the same exact thought: "No one feels like I do, no one understands what I am going through!" For someone with depression that was actually liberating. But secondly, knowing the pain people were feeling I had to do something about it.

Some morning glory seeds contain the toxin, lysergic alkaloids. It takes a large amount of ingesting them to see the effects. Depression and anxiety are cumulative. They are meta. Depression is being depressed about being depressed and anxiety is being anxious about anxiety. 

This work was part of F.L.A.M.E. 2.0. Orange Studio, Orlando FL June 20, 2019.