On the night of Dec. 23, 1888 Vincent van Gogh cut off part of his own ear. He was an artist who struggled greatly with mental health and like many artists, and he died a young person. Sometimes it seems to me that there is a myth about living a hard tumultuous life to drive creativity. My question is what might Vincent have achieved if he hadn’t suffered so? What work was left undone? What more might we have learned from him? In the gaps of time when mental illness has it grips on an artist, what is lost? The word ‘lacunae’ is defined as a gap, an empty space. What might fill the empty spaces, the gap in time when mental illness defeats creativity and we work only in survival mode? This piece explores those issues.

Eco printing on mixed media paper, Amate bark paper, text done on IBM Selectric Typewriter and handwriting by the artist. 4.25 x 5.75.

Text of Poem:
Awkwardness and difficulty and anger

they fill the empty space

of voids known and those not yet named

there's only so much imagined apocalypse a person can take

life grows smaller and smaller

embedded in a rut of dread

time passes

and in the blink of an eye and one century

you wake up from the morass

of a life half lived.