My last gearworld painting was an offering to the gods of love--this one is an offering, if such exist, to the gods of psychopharmacology.

I painted it while coming off a five-month stint on Effexor XR, an antidepressant. If you've never been in the state of requiring meds to haul you out of a hole--well, may the merciful gods keep such a fate far from you. A lot of the time it felt like I was crawling along, following a trail of exceedingly peculiar breadcrumbs, in the hopes that it'd lead back to myself at the end. And it did, and so I am terribly grateful to the miracles of modern chemistry, but at the same time, there's something very weird and a little freaky about deliberately hacking your own brain.

So, jackalope skull, hung with pills and the obligatory small fish, and my apologies for the pretentiousness of the imagery, but it was what I had to work with. The background graffiti is mostly a listing of side-effects and warnings to avoid alcohol/empty stomach/orgasms/heavy machinery/etc.

This, I suspect, is the last Gearworld painting for at least a little time--I felt the door in my head close with a click when it was done. Oh, well. It comes when it comes--back to waiting for the next crack under the door.

Acrylic/mixed media on gessoboard, 12 x 24, original is sold, prints are available, send a note or visit [link] for details.