There was a run of paintings that I did, where the photographs were taken inside the vehicle. And as far as I know, not many people know that that was a thing. It’s been a good five years now, and I can’t remember how I had it set up. I know for damn sure that one important commission was photographed with the morning sun, reflecting off the surrounding area, and into the vehicle, while the vehicle was still in the shade.
My buddy’s old lady’s pops passed away, and they asked me to paint a portrait for the funeral. Turns out he was a talented artist from the Oglala area. My buddy’s always been super supportive of what I do, and she never seemed to mind either. I guess people like art more than I think.
The first few days in the backyard were a bit… I don’t know, patchwork. I never stayed in my vehicle before. We did have a fair back on the rez, once a year, I camped out in a tent most of the time. A few times I slept in the backseat of the car, but I never lived in one, and I wasn’t really sure where to start.
The internet said that I needed to insulate the windows, and my body said I needed warmth.
That meant a roll of Reflectix and a space heater. Infrared space heater to be specific. Why infrared? I don’t really remember.
Those days, I think, were the longest days I ever dealt with.
About two years later, I’d find myself in a similar situation, but by then I’d have a more reliable schedule to follow, and that made the downtime move quicker.
Showers were on a sliding scale, placed between convenience, quality, and price.
The closest shower was easily the shittiest option, with the shortest shower time, in the shittiest side of the city, at the laundromat. The next one up was the Flying J out on Deadwood Ave. That one was fine because you got an hour to do your business, and the overall space was more breathable. The laundromat showers were clearly an afterthought, as the place wasn’t designed specifically for travelers.
The big Kahuna was out east. I went and got myself a storage unit pretty early on. It wasn’t much, maybe a ten-by-five space. Maybe about fifty bucks a month or so. I lived with a strict “no more than three totes worth of shit” policy, but I still accumulated shit, and that shit went to the storage unit. The unit was relatively affordable. Meaning it was too small and too uninsulated to seriously consider sleeping in. I’ve seen plenty of people online posting their sleep setups in those 24-hour storage units. Mine wasn’t that. Mine was basically an outdoor closet.
About a two-mile drive away was the Love’s truck stop.
The Love’s truck stop was a goddamn treat, a luxury, spendy but worth the drive and the cash.
Truckers are big boys, and big boys apparently need two shower heads, one up top and one right at dong height, to wash every god damn disgusting human crevice, and to do so with ridiculously hot water, should that be what you’re looking for.
The place was well lit, clean, and expensive. I think I spent twenty bucks per shower, not to mention the travel time and gas to get out there, which was a good thirty minutes from the campsite.
I think it was worth it, which is why I only went every now and then. Maybe once a week for three weeks.
The goal was to save up some cash. Some scratch. Some frog skins. And the only way to do that was to make art. Which meant I still had to paint every fucking day, and to do that required ol’ reliable; shower curtains thrown on the ground behind the vehicle, and time.
The algorithm was lovely back then, which is a shame, seeing as I’m doing some of my better work in 2026, with a sliver of that audience. But back then I was averaging 1-2k likes per post. I didn’t know how good I had it! Every post brought more traffic and more followers. These days, not so much. It is what it is, man. It’s why I have this website, I guess.
It’s not the most hygienic but got damn did I not like using the communal shitter back at the “campsite” (some dude’s house). I hated it so much that I ended up getting a nice thermos from Wally World, to store hot water. I used that to clean up my MRSA foot, and then I’d drain the foot-tub into a big ol’ gallon jug. I imagine that’s some straight up biohazard/cross contamination nonsense, but that didn’t matter when paired with my sheer dislike of interacting with people.
If it makes you (me) feel better about the situation – I would wrap the foot tub up in plastic film, then wrap that up in a big ol’ trash bag, and then we’d hand sanitizer the fuck out of ourselves.
The name of the game was to find sympathetic places to shit in. SPSI for short. Sympathetic Places to Shit in.
Top tier – there was a mattress store/hardware store somewhere, been a long time, but the shitter was out of the way and usually very clean. Then there was the Native art store – the Prairie Edge. That one had a great shitter, and low foot traffic.
Bottom tier – pretty much everywhere else. The two nearest gas stations were just awful. High traffic areas, small bathrooms, and the bathrooms always smelled.
The Dollar Tree closest to the camping spot was also terrible.
I’d place the AirBnB campsite shitter in both top tier and bottom tier. Top for cleanliness. Bottom for having to shit in a stranger’s house.
Getting into the campsite was interesting. I met the guy out front, and he gave me the directions. Back the way I came was a turn off for a church, and instead of going into the church, I was supposed to hop the curb and drive towards his property. It didn’t have a gate, instead there was an eight-foot-wide section of fence without any pickets. And to be fair, behind the church, and into the guy’s property, was a decent chunk of nature, for being where it was.
The days were hot. Man. The days were hot. Cars get hot. The windows let in sunlight, and trap heat. Those same windows let out heat, and shit gets cold as fuck. It didn’t help that we were still in late winter/early spring. It would snow well into April. More so at the next spot than the current, but there were strings of days where the snow fell and built up a good five to ten inches.
My dad’s brothers died before I was born. They were a good ten to fifteen years his senior. Meaning their kids were closer to my dad’s age than ours. One of them was an interesting dude. A strange, strange dude, but interesting. In and out of jail, and big into being a traditional Lakota. He always had a medicine pouch around his neck and claimed to talk to tree spirits. Now, to you, that sounds spiritual as fuck, to us, who knew who the guy was, it sounded like he was huffing gas again.
Fucker loved huffing gas.
Dad had some kind of old sedan that didn’t run anymore. Buick Sable or some such. It was a nice vehicle for the time and price. But it didn’t run. Grandpa had land. Pop’s pops. Well, most of the old timers had land. It was kind of a deal that the government struck with the tribal members in the late 1880’s/early 1900’s. I think the goal was to turn us into farmers, but there wasn’t much to be farmed out there.
Grandpa’s land, the stuff out in the country, that was mule deer land. That was coyote land. It was cattle country, not farming country.
He also owned the land that his house was on. His lot, the lot next door (where one of my uncles has lived since at least the 80’s), and just below the back yard. And that’s where pop’s junked out car was. And that’s where our strange, tree talking, super Lakota cousin lived, for several years.
My dad’s oldest living brother lived beside his youngest brother’s house. Which was right across from grandpa’s house. Dad’s oldest living brother lived in a junked-out van. I’m not so sure about the years, but it was a long, long time. When dad was on his benders, he’d spend a lot of his time down there with my uncle. They used to drink in weather so cold that their beers would turn to slush. Thinking about that always turned into pop’s talking about his grandpa.
Grandpa Raymond.
Said dad’s gramps used to always have a beer glove because his beer was too dang cold.
My uncle lived in that van for years and then one day he was just gone. Turns out he found a lady at some point. Stopped being a boozer and shacked up for a long while. I wish it lasted longer than it did, maybe he’d still be alive if that were the case, but probably not. He was an old man, for a boozer, when he finally passed.
Pops and my uncle, always telling stories. Inside jokes that no one knew back then, and no one these days would understand. “Tigger said, that ah-tay (dad) said, that Tigger (one of their relatives) said that Ah-Tay (dad) said that…”
Pops let my uncle get some of the spotlight. Said that there was a little rez gang back in the day that called themselves the “Savage Seven.” Supposedly they were giving my dad some shit, so my uncle (back before he was a bum) had to regulate.
Unc said that he used to live in Texas, more than just living in Texas, said he was a ranch hand down on one of George Strait’s properties.
Bullshitting is a family skill, apparently.
Pops used to employ my uncle. Unc had to earn some free beer by taking us out to all the old hunting spots. Take us to the old hunting spots and help me haul the deer back to the vehicle, teach me how to field dress ’em. Yeah. Unc did that shit weird, man. My older relatives on my ma’s side used a saw to get through the ribs/sternum, and then they’d wedge a piece of 2×4 in the chest to open up access to the… I don’t know, organ lining.
My pop’s brother had a technique that didn’t require a saw but was messier.
He used to open the deer up down near the diaphragm and reach up and into the upper chest/throat area, and then he’d yank everything out that way.
I never did it his way.
Let the old man earn an honest day’s pay, I guess.
The church across the campsite was beautiful and massive. Lutheran church out on the south side of the city. I used to walk across the street to the pizza place to buy a sub sandwich. Then I’d make my way back towards the campground and take a stroll out in front of the church. Massive, man. Massive property. The whole area was like that though. There are literal mansions on that side of the city, and you wouldn’t know it if you never drove down some of those roads.
I fuckin hate being poor.
My uncle died a year before pops. He used to hitch hike across the rez, which would be about a three-county area. He was a real bum, an actual bum. He’d beg for cash uptown, make enough for some forty ounces, then post up across the street from the gas station, on tribal land, to get sloshed.
Big into the Sundance community but never traditional. I always thought that was strange, and I guess it’s one of the reasons why I didn’t have much reverence for it. My uncle said the quiet part out loud. He didn’t go to the Sundance for religious reasons; he went for money and White women. People would travel from all over the world to visit, and they brought smoke, money, and booze.
I knew plenty of drunks that got involved in the traditional stuff but never really changed the way they lived. One of our friends used to talk about eating peyote at ceremony, talkin’ about hearing drums and how strange it got. Wasn’t enough to save him. Not enough to keep him sober. They found his body in someone’s yard out on the rez back in 2022. Good guy. I liked him a lot. Funny guy, effortlessly funny, but also a big-time drinker.
My grandpa on my mom’s side passed away, oh I’d say in 2014 or some such. One of our cousins came back for the service, he’d been missing for a long while. I saw him one night back in 2012. I used to have a shitty van that I’d get sloshed in. My cousin popped up out of nowhere. Said he just spent the night in the drunk tank and got released about fifteen minutes prior. That was an interesting conversation. He got all traditional too.
Said he spent the last few years traveling with the local medicine man, going all over the country. Talked about eating peyote, mushrooms, and ayahuasca. And, like my uncle and my friend – it all had no real long-lasting effect on him. The night before, he ran off with the medicine man’s vehicle and drove it out west to one of those more isolated rez communities. Said the car ran out of gas or broke down, something like that, so he drank with a local bootlegger.
Ended up stealing a half gallon of Lord Calvert, walked back to town, and then blacked out. Came to in the town jail.
I got got by the corruptive nature of man, man. That cousin went traditional as hell, and when our grandpa died, he came back and started singing peyote songs while we caught up. And he was honest as hell too – they meant nothing. All they did was follow the lead of whoever was singing.
I’m sure in another life, I could give the traditional path a real walk, and find something worth sharing, but at that time, the people who got involved didn’t seem to do much better than the Christians.
Anyways, all that hitch hiking did a number on my uncle. Fucked his skin up. Ended up getting skin cancer. By the time they found it, it was too late. He deteriorated pretty quickly. Ended up living with my aunt, his sister, dad’s sister, for the last few months. And then one day he decided he wanted to drink, so he hitchhiked to the nearest town over, about a fifteen-minute drive away.
We don’t know the details, but they said he was found unresponsive. Whoever he was with left him and stole his cash and pain pills.
Pops was gone about a year later.
I still remember the painting that got me out of that spot. Got me out of the vehicle and under a roof. I don’t think I have a copy on file, but I remember the project name, some heavy band from South or Central America. “Winds of Tragedy” or the main songwriter’s side project. He bought art for both.
I didn’t do too bad on the sales front, for living, painting, and photographing from my vehicle.
Never did too bad.
Never did too good either, but we didn’t do too bad.
I think I lived in the Yukon for three and a half weeks. I know that I left early. I made enough cash from art to put a security deposit down on a cabin about twenty miles west of the city, out there in Piedmont, SD.
