I Was Just Like You Once

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All The Pictures In My Head - Red Series (Painting 3)

(18" x 24") - Acrylic Paint and Charcoal on Canvas

Driving to work one morning, I stopped for a red light at a busy intersection commonly occupied by homeless people seeking donations.  True to form, I couldn't help notice an elderly gentleman dozing on the base of a tall street light holding a tattered cardboard sign that read:

I WAS JUST LIKE YOU ONCE

Of all the homeless signs I have read over the years, this one stood out to me for taking the "cautionary tale" approach to seeking alms.  He was once up at 6AM, in and out of the shower by 6:30AM, on the road by 7AM, and to the office before 8AM.  Or he was at his son's high school graduation, then off to dinner and a few drinks with friends of the family, then cuddled up with a Grisham novel and his wife anticipating a long weekend.

Maybe he was all of these or none of these.  Maybe he was all of us or none of us.  Who knows?  But in his mind, his sign, his message, was an attempt to meet his immediate needs by connecting his past with our present.  To find some measure (or amount) of grace on common ground.  But he was asleep so I couldn't hand him the twenty in my pocket, then drive off content that I had done my part while acknowledging "...There but for the grace of God go I."

The canvas for each painting in the Red Series was primed with cadmium red medium hue.  Newsprint and water were used to peel away successive layers of paint, revealing the common mother color binding them all together.  Colors are intentionally muted and overlapping.  Lines, shapes, and figures are superimposed and blurred to suggest  fading memories of things that came before.  What once was is no longer.