I started working on this piece right after I woke up to my wife saying it was my turn to get up with the kids.
I rolled out of bed with 2 whole hours of sleep and sat on the couch next to my oldest. He said, hey dad, you’re the one with the hundred dollar bill, will you give it to me so I can buy a go pro.
This got me thinking, when I was a kid, when did I realize the value of items?My earliest memory of value was a Magic the Gathering card The Black Lotus. My older sister was into it [magic] and she had traded a lotus away and then found out how much it was worth. Times were different as a kid though, we didn’t have google to answer all of our questions. We couldn’t just check to see which card was the rarest.
After a few sips of caffeine, I picked up the iPad to check twitter, but Procreate was still open from last night. If you don’t know me or follow me on twitter (@ih0dl) then you should know, I have terrible ADHD. It’s probably the worst.
So, while still thinking about the lotus I forgot the whole reason I picked up my iPad (twitter) and I started to sketch the flower from my childhood memory of the card.
When starting I expected to half ass doodle of a flower. I thought I would doodle and drink caffeine until I was ready to finish the WIP from the day prior.
Little did I know, I would end up spending 16 hours straight working on this flower.
While working on it I started to think about value, and my sons question. When he asked me I said, “If you clean your room I will give you 10 bucks.”
He replied, “but, you already have the 100 you could just give me.”
I tried to explain value to him the best I could. He got bored and started singing a song and playing with a race car.
I drifted back into my piece thinking about childhood and how fucked up shit was. My parents loved me to death, but we were definitely lower class trash. I say trash because I have grown to embrace it. I literally came from nothing and worked every minute to escape. While my understanding of value may have started with the playing card, it quickly expanded to how much I valued my escape.
With this piece I wanted to summarize my life. It may have started as a doodle, but it turned into a story. Which I break down into 8 pieces.
“Dirty Water” - symbolizes my beginning, which I covered above so I won’t get detailed here.
“Broken Mirrors” - symbolizes the realization that the life I was living wasn’t normal. I could change the reflection I see staring back at me.
“The 80s” - symbolizes my childhood which is filled with nostalgia that floods the brain with dopamine when I think about the technology back then (and into the 90s).
“Radar” - symbolizes running, I thought I was escaping it all by joining the army. I thought that I was going to get away. You can run, but you cannot hide, no matter how good of camouflage you have.
“The Bigger Picture” - symbolizes me reevaluating after battling PTSD from my time overseas. I lived in dark solitude for upwards of 5 years. Until I was ready to look at that broken mirror again.
“Black Lotus” - symbolizes me discovering my own value. This is when I decided I wasn’t just going to work to get by any more. This is when I was determined to break free. This is when I knew I was going to do something with this fucked up life.
“I hate school” - symbolizes graduating college after dropping out of high school to work more and save money to escape. What a strange twist, I never thought I would do it. I almost opted out of the GI bill because they took 100 dollars per pay for a year to cover it.
“Happy Accidents” - symbolizes me discovering NFTS. Before NFTs I was working in a hospital lab, and got fired during the peak of covid. I tried going up against a crooked ass drunk manager and she fired me the day I came back from bereavement leave. I had to bury my sister and then fight covid (pandemic not virus) with no income the next day. While this may not seem too happy, the end of the story gets better. I discovered NFTs accidentally and I finally escaped.
