Ecce Homo

Panic, from what you have posted lately I cannot help but feel that you are Good and Kind and A Friend, thank you, it is very important what you share, it helps us all. I hope you have a good day, thank you.

Thank you so much! I hope you have a good day too.

tbh, I was kinda waiting for someone to point this out and yes, you’re absolutely right. Abuse doesn’t have to be physical, it can be emotional and/or verbal.

This comic came about because I‘d read several commentaries comparing Homer Simpson and Peter Griffin, specifically in regards to how they treat their daughters.

Almost everyone I know who takes the time to think critically about The Simpsons or Family Guy hones in on the fact that Peter physically and emotionally abuses Meg, whereas Homer is incompetent, neglectful, and absolutely does not understand Lisa -- but he loves her and he tries.

In the commentary about how Peter and Homer treat their daughters, I didn’t really see anyone bring up the physical/emotional abuse of their sons.

To lay it out there -- I loathe Family Guy. Fucking hate it.

I grew up watching The Simpsons and can have entire conversations purely through quoting the show. But as much as I love The Simpsons, I think the overall cultural attitude to corporal punishment (physical abuse) has changed enough that it’s time to retire the running “joke” of Homer choking Bart. It may have been a culturally acceptable joke ten years ago, but more and more research is showing seriously negative outcomes for kids that have experienced any form of physical punishment. We need to stop normalizing it.

As for King of the Hill, Hank and Peggy are hardly perfect parents and both have a tendency towards stifling Bobby’s more flamboyant and/or “feminine” behavior. But they both love Bobby; they have both, at different times during the show, been able to connect to Bobby through his various interests. While not perfect, they are a much healthier depiction of a family.

As a queer transgender dude who grew up in Texas and is totally unsuited for Southern concepts of masculinity, I have a real soft spot for King of the Hill and for Bobby. It’s a far more real and complex depiction of family, compared to the pointless cruelty of Family Guy or the lesser cruelties of The Simpsons.

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Clients’ names and personal information have been omitted to retain their privacy.

"Memorial for a Moth."

glass jar, moth, cork stopper, candle

"Memorial for Nemo."

glass jar, cat hair, embroidery floss, bone stopper, candle

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More warm ups before work

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how do you feel about your bart/chris/bobby comic being low-key iconic in some circles? I just read it again and it really brings me totears

I'm glad you find the comic so meaningful.

On one hand, it's gratifying as an artist, to know that my work has resonated with so many people. Based on some of the messages I've gotten from people, the comic has been part of how they processed their own childhood experiences or part of what inspires them to start their own therapy. That's amazing! It's not like I set out with that being the goal of the comic or anything!

On the other hand, it's given me a small experience of "death of the author." I didn't conceive of the comic as a sweeping critique of the "nuclear family animated comedy" or depictions of violence, trauma, or abusive relationships in media. I have LOTS of complex and contradictory opinions on "difficult" subjects in art. I created the comic while taking a class on family and couples therapy, and was inspired by the class to explore how real family/relationship dynamics might occur if I approached these cartoons as real families. I think a lot of people get this backwards -- they see the comic as using a lens of psychology/counseling to critique popular media. My actual experience of thinking up the comic was using popular media to explore what I was learning about psychology/counseling.

That said, I recognize that once something is out in the world, I can't completely control how it's interpreted or used. The positive messages I've received greatly outweigh my ambivalence about how some people view/interpret the comic.

Your comic about how you used to love to draw.. I sympathize so much. It must be so difficult to process those feelings during times like these. If it is any consolation, the space your art takes up is a joyful, meaningful one in a lot of people's hearts. It's like a language guidebook that creates the foundation of a second language in the mind of the reader. I know how poisonous it can be to think of your art as needing a function, to be small and disposable yet widely used, I hope you are feeling better these days with your art and that you are able to heal. Your art has helped heal a lot of us, but more meaningful is if it is able to heal you

Thank you for sending me this.

Honestly, I think disenchantment with, and then falling back in love with, art-making has been (and probably will always be) a cyclical part of my life. It’s my own little myth of Sisyphus wherein I laboriously roll my absurd art boulder up the hill, convinced that this task matters, only to watch in despair as it rolls back down the hill. I accept that I must do this task again, that my labor doesn’t matter, but pushing the art rock up the hill was fun so I might as well do it again.

Portrait Study 2023

Work in progress pictures can be seen here

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Doing some painting studies.

Top left: straight lines only, open acrylics. Bottom left: heavy body acrylics. Right: starting with open acrylics as the base, will go back on top with heavy body acrylics.

original illustration - face 4

available for $35

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"Amateur Psychoanalysis"

self-portrait, acrylic on wooden board, 11.5 x 18

This is the first finished painting that I've done in over a year. It was inspired by the work of Jenny Saville, Francis Bacon, and Nicola Samori. My intention was to create a piece where only certain parts of the image were fully rendered, so as to show the various stages in a painting. In this case, only the left eye, the mouth, and the ear are complete; every other part of the image is left at an earlier stage of painting.

As for the title and the smear of the right eye... I don't know. They just kind of happened. Since the start of the piece, I envisioned the right eye as a smear of white paint. The title is how I referred to the piece mentally as I worked on it.

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