-When I was younger
I always carried a sketchbook with me
I liked capturing things from everyday life
It was a social thing for me to be sketching
You're kind of like excited and passionate about everything.
I was very self-indulgent and I think I am even still like that with my art,
I like to challenge myself all the time and I get bored quickly,
so I'm always doing the next thing that excites me.
When I was 20 years old, I went to go visit a friend who lived in Virginia.
And while I was there, I ended up getting injured.
I was shot in the back by an unknown assailant who was never caught or identified.
I sustained a spinal cord injury and I became paralyzed.
I don't know if people really understand what a life-changing event it is.
The one thing I had going for me was being this talented, young artist,
and then I couldn't use my hands.
I didn't even know if I was going to paint again.
I literally thought my life was over.
I thought I was never going to have any friends.
I was going to go live in a nursing home.
So I spent the first year basically completely depressed
and in the dark where I didn't want to get out of bed.
Now remember, painting is always ugly before it's pretty,
because...you'v got to find the pretty in it.
You know, you have to sign your name. If you're an adult you have to
learn how to sign your name. You go back to fundamentals
With my left hand, I could use my arm a little bit, so they would strap these pencils
to my arm and I just couldn't do it.
And then one day the occupational therapist said,
"Try putting the pen in your mouth".
And i'm like, oh, that's weird, I don't want to do that.
But i did that, and the moment I did that
my name, my signature was almost the same and I was writing things my mouth.
And so noticed how much control I had
I was like oh, I could probably draw this way,
I could probably paint this way.
And I did, but like I said, I was really bad at first
so it was so discouraging, it was humbling, because I knew how to paint.
I started realizing that I could still do this one thing from my former life
that was so important to me
And then I found a new purpose, i think,at that point, that I could do this thing.
And I'm going to do this thing really well and I can do it in this new and unique way.
We need some music.
I actually don't put the brush in my teeth I just
I tuck it into my cheek, in my lips
It's a very soft grap, so I'm not clamping down on anything,
You know, the paralyzed body is heavy, and that was the notion
I started with. The weight of gravity you're paralyzed.
And it brought these images in mind, but i think people related, like they,
people have other heavy part of theirs lives, that can be universal.
It's one thing to create a beautiful painting, but to be able to make art that can
share an experience
You ask me what paintings I think that I would be most proud of.
I think..that it would be work that I'm going to be making.
Because at some point you have to stop looking back
what you had, and start saying, oh, what I have now is probably greater.