After painting the word "solitude" in an abstract way on the wall, I covered it up with paper and began to write free verse in ink over the top. A man stopped to watch, so I included him in my writing.

"...I'm only as interesting as I think, and right now I don't think I'm as interesting as the man outside."

I turned around just in time to see his eyes pop out of his head.

A short while later, a small crowd had developed. I could hear a woman ask the man if I was lonely, he replied that he didn't know, but he thought I may be writing about loneliness. I responded by writing "it's all a product of loneliness" and once again turned around to see their stunned expressions. 

Montserrat College commissioned me to create this installation in the window of their 301 Gallery, just north of Boston, Massachusetts during February of 2016. Having just returned from traveling through Greece and Turkey, I was experiencing solitude brought on by transiting through two countries with big cultural and language barriers. When I returned to Boston, I noticed that a return to a comfortable culture brought with it feelings of loneliness; some could define it as FOMO. Only after rejecting loneliness as a superficial idea was I able to fall into the creative groove of solitude.