Dark Times

It's funny to me if I think of it now, that I don't do darker stuff. I really am quite morbid. It's pretty much a fact of my life. I'm always drawn to the darker side of things. Darker art, music, poems, etc.
But I don't, I may think the thoughts, but they don't come out in my art. I tend to do this bright psychedelic "happy" stuff, and I don't know where it comes from. Maybe it's the antithesis of what should really come out? I'm trying but it just doesn't seem to happen.


The years of 1988 and 1989 were very very rough. I lost a good friend, one of the best I've ever had. He died suddenly May 9th 1988, while coming from the bay area to see me. I had a hard time dealing with that and just acted out in all sorts of ways.
I was really pretty severely depressed for a long time. But I put on a brave front and got through it pretty much, eventually.
A lot of people in my life didn't really know what was going on, It was kind of like having 2 different lives. The ones in Palo knew what was going on, the ones at home didn't because I kept the two separate. It's really the only way I got through it. I had to close the door on Palo pretty much, and never look back. I think most of us did that, it was the only way.
My mom helped me through it, if it hadn't been for her I probably wouldn't have.
And, time has made me realize that each thing that happens in your life, prepares you for the next. And that maybe if that hadn't happened the next crisis would have been the one I didn't survive. Each one has made me stronger. I keep fighting, this life is all you get, this is not a dress rehearsal. Live through it all. Be your best.

These pictures are from the worst of those times. And I love them now. I put all of the emotion at the time into them.

A Morbid Fascination
colored pencil 24 x 36
The mat for this, I have a hard time getting photos of, is cool, it's black-core with red spiderwebs drawn on.















This is the original drawing for the above.




Nicolas Raines.
R.I.P. 8-8-67 to 5-9-88.
-"Love is forever"

"Life is eternal; and love is immortal;
and death is only a horizon;
and a horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight." -R. W. Raymond