I was leafing through my sketchbook that i’ve had for the past few years and came across an entry from fall of 2001. It’s a dialogue with my inner fears, insecurities and proverbial demons. I was in a sculpture class, and at the time was really struggling with a low in my depression. The end result of this period/passage was a 5 1/2 foot-tall, 750+lb. pawn (chess piece) made out of baltic birch plywood. I think you can figure out what it symbolizes.

It’s scary how far I’ve come. And I thank God that I’m no longer in that place, mentally.

—-

They sit, perched on the precipice of my sanity. Smoking Marlboro cigarettes, clouding my thoughts, puff by puff.

“Erect a golden calf of loathing and resentment and we will leave.”

Leave? They never leave. They sit on tattered red bar stools sipping stale, cold coffee, drowning my soul gulp by gulp.

“So what is our next present, pet?” “Make us a pretty present, pet.”

I will if you would just stop tugging at my sanity.

“Speak of sanity? Why so much? You have enough. You will feed us. We will suckle at the bosom of your sanity until you are barren. Pin us down, put us on paper. Nothing makes us happier than being immortalized in your dream book. Build the Trojan Horse of Norwood so that we may storm the gates of your own confidence…surely to be forgotten in all annals of history.”

—-
…and I did. Now it sits someplace far, far away from me. I never want to see that thing again. I never want to feel that again.