I am writing this on August 5th, 2016. It is
nearing 7:00 pm on this calm, Monday evening. Throughout this continuous stream
of consciousness, what I perceive as “me”, has encountered a host of characters,
some more base, malignant, and cancerous. Others possessed of fair, decent, and
redeemable qualities, yet, with a stroke of my pen, I cannot posit a finite
conclusion of another’s character through words as assuredly as I can write:
The sky is most certainly blue. This, is of course the trivial uncoiling of my
thoughts. NO! This is my declaration to all; I witnessed the most astonishing
feat of bravery I have ever seen. A feat that has been braided into my essence.
I watched a man, a friend, stand before all, and paint the worst day of his
life.We were there, in the studio, and as Allen rolled the
cameras, he was undecided as to what he wanted to paint. After centering
himself, he stood in front of his canvas with intimate knowledge, and admitted:
I am going to paint the worst day of my life. “What a mysterious gesture…” I thought
to myself, “To even broach this subject.” Is it not in our nature to sequester “the
worst day of our life”, into the catacombs of our memories? Or is that the instinctual
response elicited by my young character? I am not the arbiter of such things.Allen began with an abstract depiction of the boy he once
was. The boy who was so slighted in his early years. After this, he traveled to
his right, with slashes of red paint, absconding with the emotional balance of
the room, and declared “Mr. Morgan raped me!” My heart quivered from an unknown trepidation.
And I fell bewildered by the absurdness of this all. Allen began floating
beyond the physical world of his canvas, and painted the likeness of the murky
cavern deep within the recesses of his being. A cavern that was born through
the vile avarice and concupiscence of men. A cavern that was born the moment
Allen was raped, and has since been a part of his cosmic makeup. And what It
was to watch him paint this.I was watching this loving, gentle giant of a man, weep
tears of purity, from the childhood that was stolen, from the childhood that
was fractured. And even with these tears streaming down his face, and his soul
in knots, his heart exposed, he endeavored to keep painting, in the true spirit
of selflessness. He kept on painting the cavern, that he has since meditated
back to reclaim his dignity and the boy who was once lost.While Allen was painting this cavern, I was anywhere, experiencing
reality through an oblique state, with lucid eyes, witnessing the horrid
complexity that is implied when you are born as a human being. In a flash of
retrospection, I translated the series of events that has led me to here and
now, the absurdity of my life. It’s brings me a sweet solace to know this experience
was filmed.I watched a man, who has since healed, rip open the scars
inflicted upon him by perverts, to spill this sanguine blood on his canvas, as
a loving guide, to show what horrors we can experience as people, and how we
must make it our sovereign duty to help all brothers and sisters of this universal
cosmopolis. I watched a man indirectly paint “We are all here together”.
Allen Vandever Painting the fourth work for Childhood Fractured Project
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