Places I Used To Get High

Places I Used to Get High is a series of drawings accompanied by personal accounts of recovery from addiction. I made the drawings during my transition from active addiction to early sobriety over long multiple visits to outdoor sites where I used to get high and drunk alone. The drawings are physical embodiments of healing, an attempt to merge on an artistic, or even spiritual, level with the landscapes. Similar to "shares" in recovery circles, the texts are meant to remind myself and others that recovery is possible, albeit challenging. The choice to use the technique of pointillism is, on the one hand, a way of encouraging slowness, patience, and deep observation, but on the other, also a critical gesture to one of my childhood heroes, Georges Seurat, or more specifically, the character George from the musical "Sunday in the Park with George," whose painstaking, obsessive artistic practice led to isolation and loss. The works attempt to transform loss and pain into serenity.