Wait, did you just Shave your Head and Drink Rat Blood?

Yes I did.  But the rat blood was fake.  Tasted like peppermint.  And I drank rat blood three nights a week for a month.  And broke someone’s neck and ranted and screamed and drooled a lot and cried so hard my nose ran  and got strangled with a violin string and had my neck broken, three nights a week.  All this time you thought I was a nice guy, a father, and a pretty good artist with a love for quiet places. Little did you know, or did I know, that there is a darker side to me…  Here I am, shaved, dressed in rags and chained to the wall:

 

And here I am: 

and this is what I looked like by the end of the night: 

Not exactly the photo I’d put in  at the end of an artist’s profile in SW Art.  But, strangely enough, there is beauty in all this madness. I recently played Renfield in a production of Dracula.  Five weeks of practice, four weeks of performances:  It was the most intense thing that I’ve ever done; each night I’d walk out under artificial lights descend into total madness for a couple hours.  I learned a lot about myself, that I can cry so hard that I can barely breathe, every night.  Never knew.  I also learned what it is to be the medium, to be a part of a collaborative work that is both beautiful and terrifying.  To play Renfield meant to either dive in deep, or risk parody.  I dove into  a terrifying and exhilarating place.  I love the quiet of a river, the light of a sunset,  but I also now love the beauty of the human story told on a stage, renewed every night and then gone forever.  It’s all the human story, really.  Just not always told with blood and madness.  A painting is a story and a story is a picture.  Take something ugly and fill it with pathos and longing and we feel sympathy, and that too is a form of beauty.  I just found a new way to share, and I am grateful for the generous people that I shared the experience with: Marc Beaudin, the director, and the fantastic actors that became Dracula and Seward and Van Helsing and Mina and Lucy and Harker etc. etc. Can’t wait to get out and paint the new snow on the mountains, and I can’t wait to climb back on that stage.  Here’s to life’s surprises!Wouldn’t want to mess with that guy!