Recently, while rummaging through some of my mother’s mementos from my childhood, I came across a letter written to me from my youngest brother. It reads:
Dear M.W.,
Thanks for the two dollar bill. I Like it a lot. I still do art because I look up to you. You are one of my best heroes til you quit art.
Your Brother,
B
He was one week shy of his ninth birthday when he wrote that. I was nearly 20 and had just dropped out of college after pursuing a drunkology major instead of the commercial art degree I was paying for. That letter, as well as a few other items I found inside a lidless plastic storage bin, deeply affected me. My passion for art and architecture had died. I buried my dreams and eulogized on my past. Now I want to exhume it. I want that dream to claw its way to the surface, brush of the dust, dirt and decay and perform a choreographed number with a lycanthropic Michael Jackson. Hello. I am an Art Zombie.
