When I Was 5 I Put My Finger In A Pencil Sharpener Now I Think I’m A Lot Smarter (Sharper), 2000 40.5 cm x 50.5 cm acrylic on canvas

This is my second successful earliest painting on canvas still in existence. In college, I had more use for a pencil sharpener than I ever had previously or hence forth. For two years I carried this little pink pencil sharper around securely in a tackle box. It was rarely out of my sight and never out of my thoughts. I’m extremely heavy-handed and “lead”, mailable or brittle/thick or thin,  cannot long withstand my brutality so I usually need to twist up a pencil every five to seven minutes. In those years, nothing brought me greater neurotic exaltation than methodically grinding down hundreds of dollars worth of Prismacolor™ pencils. During one of these sharpening induced bliss trances I was transported back to when I was five. I clearly remembered, as a five year old, thinking that it would be a good idea to put my pinkie finger into a Mickey Mouse™ pencil sharpener (note: this was the era of jumbo pencils) and sharpen my finger. Obviously, it ended in tears…and blood…a fair amount of both.