“I am an artist and I live in Newark. I do comic books, poetry, free-style music, and portrait art. I started doing art at the age of two, just drawing stick figures. Then I would wake up at six in the morning and watch Channel 11’s old school lineup with Dragonball Z and all of that. They all inspired me to create illustrations and stories of my own.
“It’s hard to live in Newark, I’m not going to lie. But I cannot allow myself to become the stereotype of Newark. I have to fight my way out of the stereotypes. There are a lot of good artists that live in Newark. We just get overshadowed by all the bad press and the bad apples that live there. But I am fighting my way out of that. It is really hard though.
“I overcome fear every day. Relationships were a big fear for me, school was a big fear for me, my mother’s death was a big fear for me, my daughter’s death was a big fear for me. I have had a lot of people in my family that were real close to me that died. I have a fear of being alone. There are different sets of fears in my life that I have to overcome and be a man and face.
“One of the hardest times moments in my life was when my daughter died at four months old. She had stomach problems and was in the hospital most of her short life. I was in the hospital with her the entire four months. Her name was Serenity. It hit me really hard. I actually stopped drawing for a couple of years after her death. It was like a switch turned off in my heart. I just couldn’t draw. But I just recently got back into my craft.
“I tell my story through my comic books. My message is to stay positive, to never let fear hold you back… That if something doesn’t go your way at that time, it doesn’t mean you give up. Maybe it was just for you to hold back for that time, and pick it up at another time.”
~ Point Pleasant