About

I was born and raised on Indian reservation in rural South Dakota. I started drawing as a means of escape. Our family home was loud with the laughing and crying of drunks. Paydays and holidays were rough, and they were rough the entire run. I was not gifted an easy transition into consciousness. Life was bad. I was aware of how bad things were, far too soon. The elders smoked indoors and drank and fought.

I found out that if I scribbled, time would move fast. When I got to school-age, this habit became even more useful. Unfortunately, I traded socialization for a heavy drawing hand. I traded education for drawing, without ever knowing it. People didn’t go to college, trade school, or the military in our family. They grew up, drank, lived bad lives, and died young. I thought that that was what was going to happen to me.

In January 2011, I drank for the first time. It was every payday, and then it was my payday and the next week, my friend’s payday. And after that I started to trade drives up to the liquor store for booze from a number of older relatives. The years passed at break-neck speed. My good friends and good family all left. My elders were starting to pass away at a frightening rate.

In January 2017, I started painting regularly. Shortly after that, I sold my first piece. That started a self-feeding-cycle. Art would fund art supplies, shipping, and alcohol. In June 2017, I blacked out after band rehearsal and came-to, to a totaled vehicle. I was forced to sober up, due mostly to my injuries. It hurt too much to buy more booze.

My crumpled vehicle sat outside near a row of small evergreen trees, to me, it was a makeshift headstone to my drunk years.

June 2017 to June 2018 was a bad year. I remembered how shitty I was during my drinking years. My face would burn. I wanted to scream or yell or kick myself. I was scared of the future and of the past. Every time I felt that way, I set up a canvas in the corner and started to paint. I was painting for good reasons, sure, but mostly, I was painting to make up on lost time.

How much better would I have been if I didn’t take a five/six yearlong detour?

In 2021, I was making enough from art to leave. It started with weekend stays at hotels in towns none of you have ever heard of. All over our side of rural South Dakota. When I came back home, I realized I still had money, with nothing to spend it on. So, I packed up. From February 2021 to February 2024, I would move upwards of twelve times. From a hotel, to my car, to a campsite, to a proper room, back to the campsite, to that same room, to a brief stay at an artist residency, to a different campsite, to another hotel, to my car, back to my friend’s place, and finally, to a too-expensive studio apartment in a bad neighborhood.

Art wasn’t just something that I could do in my down time, and it wasn’t a poor-man’s therapy, it was also a means of survival.

My work has been on a few well-received albums, I’ve been in the Great Plains Art Museum, I’ve taken part in the Crazy Horse Memorial Foundations annual art show and their residency program, and I have a recurring connection to Farahnheight Fine Art in Santa Fe.

In 2026, I live in Texas, with some friends. My income currently comes from art. It’s a rough life. Money is hard to come by. Sales are a godsend, and I’m always behind on bills and back orders. I don’t know how long I can keep this up. Art’s been good to me. I have to believe that it will continue to be good to me. I have to believe that things will get better. I have to believe that this was all for a reason.

The future will know if this was a good gamble, or if I was simply indoctrinated into my own art-centered cargo cult.