@driftershoots

The highest selling photograph of all time is $6.5 million dollars. On April 9th, a year after my release date I launched an open edition of this piece, “First Day Out” detailing my return to exploring post incarceration. 10,351 editions were sold for $6.8 million dollars, making it the highest selling photograph of its kind to ever be sold. Under my supervision and at my directing, 15% from the sale will be used in conjunction with the bail project to free incarcerated individuals is the Hamilton County Justice center where I was incarcerated on an unreasonable bond and suffered extensive police abuse only a year ago for my work. We will be working extensively to free as many individuals as possible with the funds as well as provide legal relief and post release support to make sure they have a chance at a healthy life moving forward. Hand in hand we will see it through in solidarity. This writing of mine from a year ago details my emotions today. “There’s a storm inside of every good artist that nobody talks about. There’s an unwillingness of sorts...a realm of non-conformity that all true artists must pass on into before truly beginning to unlock the mystery of their depths. The principle isn’t one of puerile rebellion but rather of the protecting of something sacred. Conviction is sacred, what is honest is sacred, the whisper of a secret only the artist knows is sacred. The world seeks to pull the artist from this, to toss them to and fro on the winds of the storm. Time and time again the artist must find refuge inside themselves, with their hidden truths, scraps of paper and all their most precious things. Times wax tempestuous, set on persuading the artist that they need the world while the artist braves the idea that in fact the world needs them. The artist is responsible for pushing their light forward in the midst of any darkness and at any given moment their sole purpose is the light. In the earliest of caves and throughout wars, in jail cells and beyond the light endures as the artist has endured alongside it; often times with their back completely to the world. And for now I cannot fathom a more beautiful thing.”