Scars And Stripes - S
Originally made for an exhibit at Mint Gallery in Atlanta. I hadn’t even been a full year sober when I was asked to put this together for the exhibit, and man, that first year of sobriety is something else. I won’t say it’s super hard, because to be honest using and drinking every day turns out to be more difficult, but it’s definitely not something you forget.
You air a LOT of shit out when you get sober. Some of it cathartic, some of it embarrassing, and some of it so goddamn terrible that you wish you’d left it far down in the deepest, darkest corners of your psyche from whence it came. Unresolved grief, untreated mental illness, unacknowledged PTSD, arrested emotional development - all of that gets brought to the surface when it’s no longer submerged under a sea of whiskey of Laurentian depths.
And it feels like someone scraped your skin clean off. *Billy Mays voice* But wait! There’s more! In that emotionally raw state, you go through your first year experiencing life on its own terms for the first time, and while it can be a beautiful and overwhelming experience, it can also feel like someone’s pouring lemon juice, salt water, and rubbing alcohol all over those exposed, painful wounds.
Scars And Stripes were made to deal with what I was experiencing, and at the time, I had yet to get fully treated for bipolar disorder so there’s an extra helping of WT actual F thrown in there for good measure. I can’t say it was altogether bad; I was just learning to navigate a new reality and go through a little bit of growth. And as we all know, a lot of times growth can be painful, but it leads us to a better place.
This jacket made no attempt to hide its wounds. It wears them with pride because they are part of its very nature and design. Such scars are an acceptable and, dare I say, even necessary part of the human experience. Because where things both good and bad have worn away our skin and exposed the painful things we want to keep hidden, something of a beautifully and undeniably higher vibration shines through, surprising itself with its own resilience and courage.
We are not our trauma. But neither do we have to hide it.
Sizing:
Photography: Brandon Spearman
Model: Aaron Lecesne
Originally made for an exhibit at Mint Gallery in Atlanta. I hadn’t even been a full year sober when I was asked to put this together for the exhibit, and man, that first year of sobriety is something else. I won’t say it’s super hard, because to be honest using and drinking every day turns out to be more difficult, but it’s definitely not something you forget.
You air a LOT of shit out when you get sober. Some of it cathartic, some of it embarrassing, and some of it so goddamn terrible that you wish you’d left it far down in the deepest, darkest corners of your psyche from whence it came. Unresolved grief, untreated mental illness, unacknowledged PTSD, arrested emotional development - all of that gets brought to the surface when it’s no longer submerged under a sea of whiskey of Laurentian depths.
And it feels like someone scraped your skin clean off. *Billy Mays voice* But wait! There’s more! In that emotionally raw state, you go through your first year experiencing life on its own terms for the first time, and while it can be a beautiful and overwhelming experience, it can also feel like someone’s pouring lemon juice, salt water, and rubbing alcohol all over those exposed, painful wounds.
Scars And Stripes were made to deal with what I was experiencing, and at the time, I had yet to get fully treated for bipolar disorder so there’s an extra helping of WT actual F thrown in there for good measure. I can’t say it was altogether bad; I was just learning to navigate a new reality and go through a little bit of growth. And as we all know, a lot of times growth can be painful, but it leads us to a better place.
This jacket made no attempt to hide its wounds. It wears them with pride because they are part of its very nature and design. Such scars are an acceptable and, dare I say, even necessary part of the human experience. Because where things both good and bad have worn away our skin and exposed the painful things we want to keep hidden, something of a beautifully and undeniably higher vibration shines through, surprising itself with its own resilience and courage.
We are not our trauma. But neither do we have to hide it.
Sizing:
Photography: Brandon Spearman
Model: Aaron Lecesne
Originally made for an exhibit at Mint Gallery in Atlanta. I hadn’t even been a full year sober when I was asked to put this together for the exhibit, and man, that first year of sobriety is something else. I won’t say it’s super hard, because to be honest using and drinking every day turns out to be more difficult, but it’s definitely not something you forget.
You air a LOT of shit out when you get sober. Some of it cathartic, some of it embarrassing, and some of it so goddamn terrible that you wish you’d left it far down in the deepest, darkest corners of your psyche from whence it came. Unresolved grief, untreated mental illness, unacknowledged PTSD, arrested emotional development - all of that gets brought to the surface when it’s no longer submerged under a sea of whiskey of Laurentian depths.
And it feels like someone scraped your skin clean off. *Billy Mays voice* But wait! There’s more! In that emotionally raw state, you go through your first year experiencing life on its own terms for the first time, and while it can be a beautiful and overwhelming experience, it can also feel like someone’s pouring lemon juice, salt water, and rubbing alcohol all over those exposed, painful wounds.
Scars And Stripes were made to deal with what I was experiencing, and at the time, I had yet to get fully treated for bipolar disorder so there’s an extra helping of WT actual F thrown in there for good measure. I can’t say it was altogether bad; I was just learning to navigate a new reality and go through a little bit of growth. And as we all know, a lot of times growth can be painful, but it leads us to a better place.
This jacket made no attempt to hide its wounds. It wears them with pride because they are part of its very nature and design. Such scars are an acceptable and, dare I say, even necessary part of the human experience. Because where things both good and bad have worn away our skin and exposed the painful things we want to keep hidden, something of a beautifully and undeniably higher vibration shines through, surprising itself with its own resilience and courage.
We are not our trauma. But neither do we have to hide it.
Sizing:
Photography: Brandon Spearman
Model: Aaron Lecesne