I was born. My mother was an ex-Catholic who had watched her brothers be raped by the priests. She painted Matisse flowers on the walls, searching for her own peace. I grew up studying the strange shapes and bright colors. My father played reggae on his sound-system. My mother went to Africa. She brought home beads, tapestries, and drawings of insects. I was the youngest child, with two deeply abusive brothers. We grew up in a tight home in the countryside of Michigan, full of love and hatred, moments of grand joy within years of violence and chaos. I would draw with my grandmother for hours on summer nights. These were the most peaceful times. As I grew, I became fascinated with music. I picked up instruments: banjo, oboe, saxophone. I wrote poetry. My parents fought, money got tighter. I suffered years of emotional abuse, verbal abuse, trapped in the belly, the black-sheep, of the inescapable nuclear family. Tensions rose, and with it, my lack of safety continued to turn my nervous system into a battlefield. I resisted with joy. I started high school. I acted in plays, played in an orchestra, wrote poetry, directed films... I knew I was an artist. Then my brothers moved out, I was alone with my father. My mother had left him. He cried as he drove me to school. We fought off dark thoughts together. Family is so complex. I was always sensitive, yet never allowed to feel. I found something that would take my pain away. Somehow, drugs gave the voice back to me from where it had been ripped out of my mouth so many times. They soothed the near decades of verbal abuse; for once I felt big, not small. It was set in stone forever now, I was to be a great artist. Then a psychosis sank in, a total dissociation. Maybe it was the pressure of all my life experiences culminating in my mind shutting down so it may process it all. I disappeared into a thunderstorm. I moved to Chicago, sitting up late at night in an armchair, fighting this strange new insanity. My poetry grew dark within me. My life became a blur. My body was in a tundra. I lost myself: assaulted, robbed, ravaged. Culturally disconnected, thrown to the outskirts of the village. So by necessity to accomplish my goal of being a great artist, I found my inner strength. When it wasn't there, I prayed for it. I sought help from other cultures, I fought for my sanity, I found people who I trusted, I became deeply attuned to my body, I studied piano, I surrendered to the harsh lessons, I refused to give up. I believe that angels were guiding my experience. I learned how powerful the human mind is when it is activated, and especially when it is divinely connected. I realized that if you seek, you will find. So I have become dedicated to the ultimate truth of the universe: a self-expression so exquisite that its spatial joy and vibrancy can liberate the minds of those who see it. An expression which transcends medium. A joy so supreme, that it never dies. I paint every day now. All day. I listen to reggae like my father showed me. I paint flowers like Matisse. I turn all my material into art. I waste no time. I transform darkness into light, weakness into strength, pain into love. This is my evident purpose in life, undoubtedly.