In September 2002, a longtime friend dreamed I was in Key West painting a beautiful mandala on a water color pad, and then I was painting more mandalas and and people were coming to me and paying me $20 for them and later they came back and paid me more money. I was nearly out of money, looking at living on the street again, and I hoped her dream came true.
I had no artist training and did not draw or paint. Even so, I went to a CVS and bought a box of Crayola watercolor markers, a mechanical lead pencil, and a fine black ink roller ball pen. I scavenged for discarded cardboard boxes and tore off the ears for canvasses and started making very abstract "paintings".
I set up where a real street sidewalk artist displayed his wares, and presented what I called "soul drawings.
Day after day, I set up, and there were no buyers. I kept at it.
A woman I loved came to me in a dream and said, "Sloan, you married Kali!" I woke up in shock. Kali is the Hindu Goddess of destruction (death) and reconstruction (resurrection).
Based on this well-known art, where Kali has one foot on Shiva's chest, Kali and her army of women don't care for how men think.
I rode my bicycle to the Ben Franklin store on North Roosevelt Blvd and bought a pad of 11x14 130# acid-free water color paper.
I drew several stunning Kali pieces, which looked nothing like the art above.
My soul drawings morphed from pure abstract to something almost recognizable.
Still, no buyers.
I set up alone on Duval street.
Still no buyers.
My soul drawings became erotic. A man suggested I send them to Playboy. I didn't do that. Maybe if I had done it, Playboy would have bought them and I would have lived on the street for a while?
I set up on Duval Street with a fellow who weaved hats and other things from green coconut palm leave strips. No one even lookedat my art. I got the message and quit displaying the soul drawings in public..
More time passed.
I must have done several hundred soul drawings, and I sold only one of the smaller ones for $20. The buyer said he could pay more, but I had maybe $1,500 in my checking account, I was living on the street, and I said I was okay. Probably pretty stupid. Perhaps something would have shifted, if I had let him give me more money.
I burned some of the soul drawings and threw away or gave away most of the others.
A Key West city commissioner had one of the cardboard box top drawings hanging on a doorknob in his law office, and a friend in Helen, Georgia had another of the box top drawings.
I inherited the first $1,000,000 and was living inside again. I began a new genre of soul drawings.
By and by, I bicycled to Office Max on North Roosevelt Blvd in Key West, and paid them to copy some of my favorite pieces on their color copier and put them into a jpg file and email them to. me. I think some of the originals are in the attic of a friend who lives near Key West.
Like the early soul drawings, these below are more than they appear to be. They are living essences beyond the mind's comprehension.
After drawing them, something shifted in my life.
Call then spirit medicine, if you wish.
Mustang Sally
Devil or Angel
Cross Pollination
Dark Horse
Feather Talk
Abracadabra
Mary Poppins
Lollipop
Dragon Woman
Volley Ball
Clown
A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words
Perhaps something that fell out of me in the fall of 1993, when I lived in Boulder, Colorado and was well into a 4-year dark night of the soul, explains the difference between human currency and spirit currency?
God's gifts are not for sale, but are freely given to angels, saints, sinners, devils and fools alike, because all are God's children
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