These images are the results of my attempt to remain present in the creative process.

It was 5:30 in the morning about 15 years ago. I was standing in line at the methadone clinic, $13.00 in my shaky, sweating hand. I looked around and was suddenly aware of my company and at that moment I was indelibly humbled. With me, in line, were homeless junkies, millionaires, whores and housewives and we were all fully and wholly equal. I was no better and no worse than any one of them, we were a collective; In this line the details of each life became insignificant. All of us, beautiful losers and auspicious champions simultaneously. With my newly cleared vision I found wisdom in the struggle, beauty in the psychasthenia and a crystal clear clarity in the surrender of what is not mine and peace in the ownership of what is. It's through a continued and deliberate acceptance that I, and no one else, is exclusively responsible for my life and everything that happens in it. I grant myself the power of truthful self awareness. This awareness is, for me, fundamental; I can not show you what I can not see myself.

I remain continually reminded of how flawed I am and of how far I've come from a time when my eyes were closed tight to the world around me and within me and to the wounds my actions as well as my inactions inflicted on those closest to me. When my eyes finally opened the first thing I saw was humility and it was beautiful.

This is the beauty that I am attempting to translate in my images; A dark beauty of struggle, the sort of beauty that is only revealed through deconstruction and surrender.