I stapled a cotton canvas to my purple wall. I began painting it. It is another bridge. Acrylics and colored pencils and gesso and pens and pencils. It is empty, lacking human presence.

What is this bridge? The bridge is something that I pass by in my daily walk to and from the university. The bridge that I have been painting, however, does not resemble the bridge that I pass by. I have brought the arc into existence. These painted bridges resemble the arcs in the Pont Du Gard in Tarascon, Les Baux, St. Remy. I feel that the architecture of the bridge is the dominant iconography for a universal bridge. I feel that it is strong and spiritual.

I once saw a man underneath the bridge, awaking from the the weeds and stretching his arms to the sky, yawning. He just woke up. I stood there for a while. I thought to myself, “What a brave thing it is to sleep underneath a bridge, to sleep outside, by yourself, in weeds, amongst garbage and critters.” As time went on, I began to formulate a community that took part in the shelter of the bridge. The bridge is under construction.

The bridge stands on its own. The bridge is the work of a 21-year old artist who is sometimes obsessively aware of his surroundings or aware of nothing-at-all, save his own walking feet and a few wrappers here and there. The artist looks at things. Objects. Forms. I pass by a dead mouse almost everyday. It is on its back at the base of an oak’s leg. Its too small to be noticed by the city who clean up the road kill. It slowly disintegrates into the earth. My mother says, “Animals do not have a mind, do not have a soul, do not have a spirit.” This is the fundamental Protestant belief. Human-beings are the highest form of creation.

I want to paint a broken bridge. I want to paint the man yawning out from the weeds. I want to paint drug-dealers dealing behind one of the pillars. I want to paint AL sticking himself with a heroin-needle. I want to paint his daughter looking for him in the weeds. I want to paint a beautiful woman who walks underneath the bridge for no apparent reason except that she is curious of the sounds and echoes she heard coming from there. I want to paint two rival gangs about to slash each other to bits. I want to paint what happens, what is shouted outside...

Engage yourself. Explore youself.