In May of 2000, my husband left our home.
Just prior to his leaving, I was working on a painting and his comment to me was,
"Don't you think that your art is a waste of your time and my money?"
I was the one putting him through school, working nightshift as a security gard and tending to our baby during the day.
I had also just received notice from his school stating that he had dropped out just 2 months prior...but he failed to inform me and yet still pretended to go to school everyday.
But my self esteem had been drained,
Sucked Dry.
No longer living within me.
My emptiness became like a zombie and later that day I gathered up my portfolios,
and my sketchbooks,
my journals and everything related to my art was tossed
into the nearest dumpster.
Three years later,
a good friend took me to an art store for my birthday,
bought me a tackle box and told me to refill it no matter the cost.
He told me to begin again.
The first painting was this one of the screaming man.
I started with a black canvas and brought out the light with red paint.
It was of my ex husband and the red represented my anger towards him,
the screaming face represented all the things I wanted to say to him,
all the things I needed him to know.
The bringing of light into the darkness of this painting represented me,
no longer a zombie,
but coming back to life,
to re-live within this artisitic outlet
and put to death what he had spoken to me that day long ago.
A Headstone
in the memory of
Marc Eric Baskin
1994-2000
A man of many words.
All of them...
Hollow.
