This show is about my journey from a daily user to a former user. The show is not meant to be anti-drug or pro-drug…it is about my life, my healing, and my process of creating and sharing my story, openly and honestly. I offer no judgment on people that currently use and I hope to offer people in recovery something to look forward to, with my sobriety came clarity in my own life and vision as an artist.

There have been some people that do not want to be associated with the show because they feel it might shine a light on their own addiction. I am not sure how supporting my show would make people think you are a user, but I do understand the underlying guilt in the statement.

The title of the show is “A New Use For Syringes” and some might ask, why the harsh title, why not name it Clarity or Moving Forward…well, the title is what the show is about…I have taken a tool once used for destruction in my life and found a new use for and to me that is worth celebrating. I thank you for joining me in this celebration and I hope my openness and honesty about my life gives you strength to overcome something that may be holding you back.

I have been in the studio painting and I started thinking about the impact that this show has had on my life so far and I came up with a new idea. I would love to start a movement in drug treatment...I think it would be great to teach addicts this style of painting as a part of recovery. I remember syringes being a trigger for me, I remember wanting to get high after every flu shot. I stopped getting them because of my association of syringes with drugs.
It would be so cool and I think it would help some people with recovery if they could learn to associate syringes with something positive, something fun, something they could be proud to show their friends and family. Suddenly this show is becoming about more than my own recovery and healing. I am sharing my life, the good, the bad, and the ugly and I want to offer people more than a painting...I want to start a movement!

I am such a color addict...is it possible to have too much color? Why do colors like lime green and its-a-girl-pink make my heart sing. I have been trying to do a syringe painting using earth tones and I cannot fight the urge to add some bright, crazy, OMG I am back on acid green. I think I need a color intervention!

If you would like to see the show in your town or you know of a great gallery where you live, send me the information and I will see if I can make it happen!

If you were paint, what color would you be? If I get enough responses...I will create a painting for the show using all of your colors!

This show is about my journey through sobriety and rediscovering my creativity. I am coming up on five years of sobriety and painting without drugs has been harder than living without drugs. I loved doing drugs, I loved shooting up, it is strange to say that in a public forum, but it is the truth.
Part of my recovery has included disconnecting from things and people I loved and only allowing some back in...the drugs are not an option, so I rediscovered my love of syringes and found a new use for them, art!