holed up.

for two years after i left baton rouge my home base was again my parents' house. they were willing to put up with a son that was treading water, not sure what his next move was going to be. i made half hearted attempts at settling in new orleans and austin. sleeping on neal's couch, tracey's floor.

while at my parent's home i pulled a squeegee during the day. at lunch and on breaks i would play hacky sack with a couple guys in the industrial park. after work i would take walks in the woods around the county. the brandywine area is really quite beautiful. would go out maybe on a friday night with my old next door neighbor and imbibe.

by and large, most of my time was spent alone.

depressed? you bet.

in the evening i would sit at my big drawing table in my room and make pictures.

i ended up filling 3 old lesson plan books that my father had around the house. exploring different ways to mix and match materials and images. some are more minimal than others, responding to the grid of school periods that lay beneath. some became layered thickly as i tried to rework failed compositions or color schemes. a few of these have served as inspiration for larger works. filling these pages got me through some dark times.

as a group i call them "suburban lessons".

at the end of that second year i met a girl.

and things started to get a whole lot better.