Portrait of the Artist

portrait by M.E Franasiak
photo by Alana Franasiak

This week I drove to Boston in order to catch up with old friends, swim with Thoreau in his pond, and grab this artwork that was painted of me several years ago. The portrait attempts to capture the essence of the artist in his birth stages. Freshly returned from his first trip to Spain the muse is still fresh in his heart and the vision still pure on his mind. He sits inside the Dream Oven (only a few months old), holding a pencil to paper writing the first several chapters of erotica that will become his first novel, in front of a stack of TVs still simple in their construction as he is still practicing how to balance these boxes of electricity. The idea of dream exhibition is still something he is fleshing out, and most people he tells about it think he is out of his mind. They haven’t seen it for themselves yet. He has only just learned how to make a dream catcher and his other dream labors are still very early in their craft. His language is rough around the edges and he has only smoked mugwort seriously once.

But in this image he is on the rise as a living poet. He is about to enter one of the best years of his life full of deep friendships, travels, and even the strongest love relationship. For the first time in his life he feels that he is the creator of his own universe and the people around him truly are the great intellectuals he thought only existed in books.

This is a portrait of the dawn of dream punk. It is the beginning of a surreal life. Everything that follows is the borderline historic ride leading us up to now. And boy, has it been fun!

Advertisement

Point of Departure

“At first I thought I was traveling through space and time. Then I realized space and time were all cyclical and I was only a small point in this grand departure.”

Photo of Feeling the Fall, an art installation at Plato’s Porno Cave: The Trial designed by Marshall James Kavanaugh and Augustus Depenbrock. Taken by Willow Zef.

Lost travels to España

For the next several weeks I will be an expat wandering through the country that got my juices going the last time around, Spain. Particularly the city of Barcelona. Oh Barcelona, the muse is strong in you. I can’t wait to show you what I’ve written since the last time we met.

Be sure to expect some poetry along the way. Stay tuned. It’s going to get real good in only a few days.

Travels will take place from March 21 through April 10. If you’re in the country, look me up. I’ll be writing and reading dream poems all over this precious landscape.