“Decoy Nest”

2019 | 24”x24” | Mixed-media:
Prismacolor Verithin red/blue colored pencil, Derwent Inktense pencils, black ink, white charcoal, and water brush on cold press watercolor paper mounted and sealed on wooden panel.

“I saw a crow building a nest, I was watching him very carefully, I was kind of stalking him and he was aware of it. And you know what they do when they become aware of someone stalking them when they build a nest, which is a very vulnerable place to be? They build a decoy nest. It's just for you.”
—Tom Waits

During a full moon in November of 2019, I was stricken with a sudden case of acute appendicitis and had to undergo an emergency appendectomy. This piece was then created during my long and painful recovery for the “BROAD SPECTRUM” group show at Broad Room Sacramento.

Still created using my signature red/blue pencils, “Decoy Nest” is a layered representation of my difficulties relating to others—or rather, my difficulties allowing others to relate to me. It’s so easy to project my lack of acceptance onto the actions of others, but this piece helped me to take another look.

Sometimes the truth is not the simplest answer after all. When it comes to living with mental illness, the truth is often a complex battle between the forces of both destruction and repair, of self-acceptance and self-rejection—a perspective containing both intimacy and alienation occupying the same space. The closer we get to its center, the further away we feel from what we are told is acceptable. Too many times, I’ve chased the understanding of others while simultaneously rejecting the affection of those that want to be close to me.

With the winged mask of Hypnos, the broken dreamer fails to see herself as lovable, presenting false intimacy to those around her, both desiring and fearing the true intimacy she seeks. Like a spider at the center of the web, she lies in wait, feeling the vibrations and plotting each anxious word and nervous reaction. All the while, she struggles striking the balance between over-eager affection and reactive distancing.

It is only by drawing that I’m able to release these false identities, cutting ties with previously perceived depictions of self.