I was in a thrift store in Colorado going through the book section when a certain book caught my eye. This book was a roundabout five hundred page autobiography about a professional wrestler named Mick Foley. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this man he is basically considered a hardcore legend in the wrestling industry and did not fail in writing a hell of an autobiography. I spent like three dollars on a five hundred page autobiography marked at around $27, hell of a deal right? Anyway, after reading 300 or so pages of this book and reading about these crazy injuries that this man has endured including losing his three fourths of his right ear and other various injuries I got an idea. This is where this blog comes into play so pay attention. While I’m no Mick Foley, a full time wrestler, or even an athlete I’ve had my fair share of damages. As an artist I usually ended up depicting those damages in my portrait work.
An example of this was back in 2008, I was learning how to skateboard and had quite the accident whilst learning. I always had an interest in skateboarding ever since the Tony Hawk games (when skateboarding basically became ultra mainstream) but never stepped foot on a skateboard until years later in college. I had a couple of friends who skated and done so for years and needless to say I had certain aversions to some of the things they were doing. This fact could be attributed to my low skill level compounded with my low confidence level of being able to get to the level where I could safely perform said moves. One night changed everything and would completely alter my life for the next two years. I had witnessed about 4 skateboarders demolish this one hill on campus earlier in the day, so out of either stupidity, guts or a combination of both I went down the hill. It was a little bumpy at first and I was quite nervous about this whole scenario, but I persevered and made it to the bottom of this monstrous hill. Sadly I have no pictures of this hill, but be patient the pictures are coming. Back to the story, I made it to the bottom of the hill and was brandishing in the victory over this steep hill. In retrospect I should have been doing this from a stationary position, but I was still moving on flat ground. As I am moving I approach this less steep hill and without thinking about the momentum I still had from this previous hill on a high that only could only be quenched by the proceeding events I move forward. This wasn’t as easy as the steeper hill I just demolished, I quickly began to gain speed and more or less lost control. I knew I lost control and I knew I was going to fall and right before I reached the bottom of that second hill I wiped out. I hit the ground in a way that I still cannot describe, but when I got to my feet something told me to check my two front teeth. I moved my tongue to the spot where my trusty choppers should have been and panic began to set in. I did not feel my front teeth there at all so I grabbed my board and ran to my dorm room to which I heard the question “Are you okay?” from the people I ran past.
I got to my room and my roommate was there with his lady friend getting his pimp on and I headed straight to the bathroom. I was relieved, my two teeth were there just very badly chipped. I did my best to chronicle this moment and I will include pictures of the aftermath below.
My leg after the fall
I woke up the next day with all the faith that if I made haste that the dental establishment would help me and my front tooth situation. Little did I know that I would have open nerves for about a month, then a temporary foundation for the tooth only for it to get infected which caused an abscess to develop and half my face to swell up. I was also blissfully unaware that after the infection left and I had to go to a specialist and get the tooth treated only for my dentist at the time to cancel my appointment for getting a permanent cap placed on and that she would disappear soon afterward causing me to wait another year for me to get caps placed on what was left of my teeth. This waiting period allowed major decay to occur on the teeth so when I was finally able to get caps, they had to drill the hell out of what was left of my front teeth. I had a picture of what was left of those teeth but the day after I took the picture with the phone I had at the time, it died and that image was lost forever.
Abscesses are evil
Now this is the part where I relate this story to my artwork. This experience had a huge effect on my drawings for those couple of years. Every portrait that closely resembled me had chipped teeth both in drawings and in paintings. I could show various examples of this due to the fact I have filled sketchbooks with different deviations of myself but will only show a few examples for the sake of space. Below are examples of said artwork during that span of time.
I even revisited the concept of my tooth being chipped a year after having new caps
Well I think that's all I have to say for this particular entry. I hope it was enjoyable even with the plethora pictures of me.
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