Today I woke up to something I haven’t heard in a long time: a gallery calling me. Not me chasing them, not me pitching my books and art at a comic-con booth or an online store—they were asking me to submit paintings for a show in January. My art business is not just limping along anymore—it’s walking right up to my front door and knocking.
The gallery is the Whittier Art Gallery, a co-op art collective here in Southern California. They found me the way all good things find artists: at the most random place possible. In this case, one of Jacki O’s garage sales. I was selling art on the driveway like a street hustler of color pencils, and someone from the gallery picked up a piece, asked about me, and apparently remembered. Artists are weird—when we’re not weird, we’re boring. So I’m grateful they looked past whatever smoke-soaked madness I was radiating at that time.
And here’s the irony: the last time I talked to them, I had cancer and I was still smoking. Imagine that combination. They probably thought I was going to drop dead right there holding a pastel sketch. But that’s the thing about this journey—sometimes what makes you look frightening, eccentric, or unstable is the same force that makes you unstoppable. They remembered me, and they called back.
After the phone call, I took a healthy walk. No cigarette between my fingers, no wheezing, no nicotine dread. Just me, the pavement, and some clean air in my lungs.
Later, Mom and I went to the storage unit to dig through paintings and see what should be submitted. That storage unit feels like an archaeological dig—layers of my life, projects, exhibitions, eras of style, failed experiments, successes, heartbreaks, and victories — all packed in boxes. And for the first time in a long time… I didn’t feel like I was looking at relics of a dying artist. I was looking at inventory.
Drawing instead of puffing is working. The universe seems to be rewarding the shift in focus. Doors are opening I didn’t even knock on. I’m not chasing the cigarette anymore. I’m chasing the next painting.
I got this.
by Dan and Bonkers
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