This piece, “Stop Feeling Sorry for Yourself,” might have marked the true moment I decided to actively channel anger into a piece of art.
But just to be sure, I’ll take a quick peek through my past work and pull out a few more (that I haven’t shared widely) where I was also feeling some of the so-called “uglier” emotions. I found three:
Before we get into the piece that this post is supposed to be about, I’ll run through these real quick because they truly are the only ones I could find that depict something other than “ooh, pretty landscape!” or “ahh, harmony” or “ooh, bizarre” or “pa-pow! Colors!”
1.) Balloons. Those are glowing balloons painted from a memory of my first acid trip. I’m not advocating for drug use, because I was a grown-ass adult when I did this and understood everything I was doing, until I understood nothing, which was exactly when the acid kicked in. At some point in time, I lined up these glow-in-the-dark balloons in front of a mirror so they could all see how beautiful they were. There was one plain black balloon that was a little smaller than the others; his self-esteem wasn’t the same as the others, but I could see his inner glow. I painted this a couple years after this trip because the images of those glowing balloons really stuck with me.
2.) Self-portrait. I stood in a bathroom mirror for this one. This was probably 2015, I was 29, and I remember feeling really frustrated with my economic status at the time. I was barely making it on my freelance writing income, and my partner at the time really only wanted to be a dirtbag and not have to work. This was probably a couple months before my car was repossessed, and we sold everything and moved into his car. The mask in the image probably had something to do with my feeling like I had to hide my true self, or that I was playing a game or a role.
3.) Weird eyeball thing. This was a doodle I did shortly after moving to Colorado the first time. I don’t remember much about it, but it’s spooky, huh?
So, back to the work we’re actually talking about here!
This piece was part of the series “Choices,” which tells the story of how I took one step at a time to remove myself from the isolation of a toxic marriage to emerge into the world and discover my own perspective.
Four of the paintings in the “Choices” series are gentler, hopeful, nuanced.
This one was the one where I wanted to dump all the really intense feelings about anger, regret, confusion, and distorted reality.
I started with a reference photo of myself kneeling on the floor, in the process of getting up. I sketched this and a huge cloud above my head with broad strokes before getting into the painting.
Here’s a timelapse of the start of this work:
I got bolder and less inhibited the more I worked on it, but found myself constantly scrutinizing if I was relying on red too much to convey anger, or being too careful or precise with my lines, or if I needed to add photorealism to draw people in, and on, and on.
What started as my least favorite piece became my most favorite piece. It’s on display at the Mudlounge in downtown Springfield, Missouri as of February 2026!