67449
.1 .2 .3 .4 .5 .6
67449 was a show scheduled for mid-2026. Unfortunately with the November 2025 death of the man who was both my landlord in Kansas, and my father figure for over half a decade. I decided that it would be best changed to a solely digital show.
67449.1
“I Moved to Kansas to Die”
24”x24”
Mixed media on canvas
“I Moved to Kansas to Die”
I can say that now. I was going to wait one month. Get the house unpacked and my art studio organized. Get my cats situated. Find a lovely corner to look in. And wait. I wanted the ability to die but refused to take accountability for it.
Every minute of time in that state I told myself I had no other choice. I did. I just didn't want to look into them. Because there was no option that would let me stay a martyr of my situation.
the one thing I felt I had left was the ability to turn myself into a storybook martyr. I joked about cost of living and getting out of the city for the pandemic. But what I really wanted to sit in rural Kansas and rage at the world. I wanted to stick my hands into myself like clay, pull out handfuls of the pain I felt and proudly display them.
Hell, I wanted to sell them for a profit. I wanted to slap them in boxes and mail them with gift wrap until I was slip and nothing. So I could prove I could exist as pure, granular pain. The pain that ran from the back of my jawbone to my sternum, because God knows if I spoke a single word I would never be able to stop until I was hearing things about myself that I will never be able to hear again. I could finally let myself collapse and the state would swallow me. I would only exist as a memory. A ride to chemo. A sandwich. The feeling of a controller. I could finally not be me, I could be who they needed to me to be for every situation.
My coworkers had an excel sheet of properties in Kansas. I chose one 45 minutes southwest of Kansas City, was told it was under active construction and I'd be too far from their other properties if it was an emergency. I shrugged and picked a parsonage that predated most of WW1. I told myself if I hated it I would be out in 30 days. I lived there until 1/21-11/23
67449.2
“The Muffler Fell Off the U-haul Directly In Front of the House”
18”x24”
Mixed Media on canvas
Honestly, I’m pretty sure it was a sign that I should leave, immediately. Even at that time I felt like it was the house warning me. But I went in. almost because I knew it would hurt, instead of despite it. It was like I wanted to deliberately make myself feel without the distractions of neighbors, or activities, or anything but flat, lonely isolation.
I purposefully put myself into a deeply painful position, just to have others see me and applaud at how well I was handling the suffering i deliberately put myself in.
Every time anyone, friend, stranger, or coworker said I was doing so great for my situation I felt like my pain and suffering were valid. I could have stopped the pain at any second, but the agony was absolutely, purely, delicious. It was intoxicating.
The town was like my landlords kingdom. He seemed to pride himself on every dilapidated shed he owned. He would claim where I lived was a gem. but honestly it was a crumpled piece of plastic in the sun. what wasn’t rust was mold and what wasn’t both was single use plastic. It wasn’t a drowsy town in the sense where everything was sleepy and ran at its own pace, it was the sluggishness you get after eating too much fried food at the fair after spending all your money on toys that seemed great at the time, but when you looked closer there were important parts missing and the material was actively warping in from of you eyes.
it was a greasy, sweaty, clogged lethargy where nothing seemed clean, no matter how many times you cleaned it.
67449.3
“The First Thing I Did Was Get A Cat Tree Built”
24” by 24”
Working title “Road to Joy”
Mixed media and book pages on canvas
67449.4
“The First Night 5 Stray Cats Came to the Front Door. I Called them My Backyardigans”
3’x1’
Mixed Media on Canvas
