WELCOME TO THE GALLERY

I consider "Third Eye of the Tiger" to be my first “real painting”. It was March of 2020 - the pandemic had just hit - and my former band was getting ready to release our first single. I was tasked with making the cover art. I had known I was supposed to do this for several months, but I doggedly avoided it as long as I could because procrastination seemed like a solid defense against fear of failure. Until my bandmate/roommate Taj said, “Hey, the single is coming out next Friday. So… you have a week to make this painting.” A week??? Oh, SHIT. I leapt into action. Bought a big square canvas. Sketched out a big tiger face with a third eye and added some tree branches, why not? At this point in my artist journey, I had very little painting knowledge - the only technique I was vaguely aware of was that of my favorite artist Amanda Sage, whom I knew approached her artwork by building up layers of glazes and white underneath them, so I clumsily tried to copy this, going off of a few Instagram process photos she had posted. I entered a vortex of extreme artistic focus, painting for hours into the night after I finished my day job. How perfect that quarantine had just started and so for the first time, there was nothing else to distract me from my art. I had some freakout “oh-shit-what-did-I-just-do” moments, but for the most part, the piece just flowed out of me. And 50 hours and one week later, it was finished. Just in time for our single “Third Eye of the Tiger”’s release into the world. Listening to the song at our zoom release event as we featured the painting on screen, I felt dazed. How did I make that? How did that even happen? How does art ever come into being? It’s a mysterious thing. Although since that first painting, I’ve had many more transcendent art experiences, I’ll forever treasure this one, especially because it was done in collaboration with my dear friends with such sacred intention behind it. It expresses a vision that when we see how much potential we all have for beauty and joy and creativity, we will awaken and set ourselves and the Earth free.