let’s talk about it…
Are murky waters filled with danger when we can’t see through them? You don’t know unless you dive in. It’s where you discover yourself and truth…wading while occasionally allowing the water to engulf you.
(murk)ed is about who influences our judgement and how we shape our lives. Inhaling their food for thought. Amplifying their voices, praising them for being a light in our darkness. Exchanging love + compassion. But if you’re not paying attention, you’ll miss the red flags.
Save yourself from those that disrupt your order and who mask their harm as healing.
I thought I could spit this poem out effortlessly. No - I put the pen down when I couldn’t stitch the words together even though they echoed on my heart. “Maybe I need to unwind with my paints.”, I thought. For eight months, a 36inx36in wood panel stared at me in the corner displayed blankly on the easel. One Friday evening after a demanding workweek, I said screw it - pulled out the tools and scattered my supplies across the floor. For six days I ripped paper, rubbed paint and peeled glue. I’m a big ass kid that enjoys finger painting a lot. Reasons why I choose touching the coolness of wet paint over digital art.
I didn’t know what to make besides a collage, but I trusted the flow. I knew something would emerge eventually. July marks a year since I completed Ghetto Snake, a visual + flash fic, and I went through a similar situation when I needed to shift my focus between the mediums. It took me two arduous months to get them done. That’s not the intention for (murk)ed, but taking an intermission to paint was necessary to build the poem. Perhaps I needed to see it first.
“The words will come,” I say to myself, turning panic into trust. That friction, the discomfort from being patient is where the message gets distilled. It’s where I ask myself over and over again, “What is it I am trying to say?” It's the space from which I practice sharing how I feel.
Rachel Leeke Alexis, ‘To Write I Must Feel’
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Ghetto Snake...
A con. Joker. Shape shifter. He’s a ghetto snake. Like a thief, he slithered and stole my fragile heart, gradually chipping it down to dust, but I won’t leave. He tells me he loves me even if it's a beautiful lie. I move like a pawn in hopes he’ll treat me like his queen.
Thanks for reading my shit. I love you.
peace.
alex b.
Love this painting and enjoyed watching its development on the notes. The poem is dope, holdmeclose, love that. I've recently been getting back into drawing/sketching and have enjoyed how it breaks up or creates space around other creative work. Appreciate the insight on process and seeing the poem through the painting before finishing it.
Oh... oh my damn.
I'm in awe for many of reasons:
1) the way that you connect words and style them so that they can look like art
2) your artwork always speaks to my soul - its so intricate - filled with so many stories and interpretations
3) as you may know, this theme of duality and becoming has been following me - so much so that I'm pursuing it on a deeper, almost life thesis level, and now it feels like works like these SCREAM at me because this?!
Your work is always worth the wait. A L W A Y S!