No. 8: Force of Will - controversial mixed media

Trigger Warning: Drug Use.

Dear Friends,

This provocative artwork is incredibly unusual and might cause strong feelings because it includes real heroin, a strong drug, in the center of it. It also uses edible gold, which is often seen as very fancy and expensive.

Photographing this piece was difficult as it is multi-dimensional.

Corner 1

Corner 2 - the plunger side

Corner 3

Corner 4 - the drug entering the vein

The bridge

Under the bridge

There is a note in the back of the painting with the title being “Force of Will” and the word “Will” is struck through and replaced with “Won’t”, likely changed later and signifying that this wasn’t my brother’s only IV heroin use.

I’m not going to write a lot today, as the note explains everything in detail.

Full transcript:

Force of Will Won’t

Substances ingested:

- 4mg clonazepam

- Around 100mg Afghan brown heroin IV. The true heroin content is anywhere from 5mg to 10mg.

I bought 1 gram of brown sugar off the dark net, which is a misleadingly quaint name for something that's anything but sweet.

I decided to try IV for the first time ever, the only time ever. I used 100mg to get[sic!] inject and 900mg to create the art piece.

And there it was, the whole sordid setup: the spoon, the citric acid, a lighter, and a syringe, the tourniquet snaked tightly around my arm. I used a small piece of cotton for filtering.

The first two attempts at finding a vein were a failure, pain and blood everywhere. Perhaps we can romanticize it as my own flesh refusing the invasion.

The third effort was a grim charm—the charm of the third time being a charm, they say—with the needle now dull from its previous failed attempts. Upon the third puncture of my skin, the plunger of the syringe drew back a crimson confirmation. There was a moment, a pause where I was both participant and distant observer, noting the perversity of relief at the sight of my own blood signaling 'success.'

The descent of the plunger was slow and deliberate, and with it, a breath that was half-sigh, full-surrender. The stress and the stain of failure, both in the effort to inject and in the larger scope of my life, seemed to dissolve into the chemical rush that promises escape but shackles you all the tighter.

The aftermath was a numbness. There was no euphoria in the traditional sense, no sense of joy or triumph, only a cessation of pain, a brief hiatus from the chronic ache. Amidst this chemical calm, appeared a realization, a clarity that comes with the most bitter irony, that I might actually prefer nonexistence to this facade of relief. The shame wasn’t in the act itself, but in what the act signified: a total abdication of self-care, a surrender not to a higher power or to society but to a base compulsion of hormones. It was a moment of reckoning, with the cost tallied in more than just health or legality, but in the currency of my soul.

About the piece:

1. The river or the syringe - 900mg of Afghan heroin.

2. The bridge - symbolizes the addict’s veins. A tin construct painted with acrylics wrapped in edible gold.

3. Around the bridge - the red is blood, and blue stands for my will and the plethora of poured acrylic colors are the feeling of heroin rush and dopamine hitting your brain when it kicks in. I will never do acrylic pouring again, but I thought it fits this piece.

4. Varnished glossy in the end.

- zero talent -

Thank you for your support and, as always,

Be well.