This was a piece I made primarily with acrylics but the majority of the paperwork cutouts are from my personal medical notes, my medication guides or weird NA/AA and various religious rhetoric I received while in the psych ward.
I started this only knowing I wanted an octopus and a dichotomous message about growth.
It references a few things extra personal to me as my psychiatric and physical health acutely declined immediately following the loss of my son, Delta. I have had multiple suicide attempts, a brief benzo+alcohol addiction and a slew of doctors in my life since he's left it. I wanted "recovery" to be fairly easy to see but hard to connect with what comes before it. I chose an octopus because not only are cepholapods neat, but octopi are smart, can survive out of their element for a surprising amount of time and are an intimidating and somewhat alien type of familiar creature.
I made this piece in a sort've meta-catharsis in that art can really drive you crazy and allow you to fail yourself entirely through the process not unlike recovery from trauma, grief or substance abuse (all of which followed my tragedy). I sold it to a friend of mine who overcame an abusive childhood and hard drug use and is a fairly happy and successful person now, which is far from where I am personally though I find it inspiring.
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