The MESS Inside My Head

Welcome to the Mess in My Head Literally everyone tells me I should write a blog, do a podcast, or start a YouTube channel.Well… this is me doing that. Hopefully, I’ll be able to introduce myself to people who don’t yet know me—or just stay in touch with those who do. I’ve spent most of my life between worlds—between the U.S. and Honduras, between music and paint, between passionate, fiery faith and quiet moments of doubt. And somewhere in all of that, art became the language

(Echoes of Van Gogh, Vol. 1) I was fifteen the first time I saw a print of Café Terrace at Night. I stood in Kmart for about an hour just staring at it. That painting hit me like a song you don’t know the words to but somehow already love. I remember later going to the Mobile Museum of Art and buying Café Terrace  stationery — just to write letters to my future wife. Years later I loaded up the whole family and drove all the way to Atlanta to see the Van Gogh exhibit at the H

Château de la Lune Sometimes a painting starts as color, and sometimes it starts as a story you can’t quite get out of your chest.This one began with both. I kept seeing them—two figures meeting again under the same moonlight, years after the world they knew had collapsed. The balcony. The canal. The air thick with what’s unsaid.And I thought: What if some loves never die? What if they just go underground until it’s safe to breathe again? That question became Château de la Lu

I was sittin’ at the bar of the old Hotel des Perdus— one of those places where the piano sounds tired, the mirrors have forgotten how to reflect clearly, and the rain always finds a way inside. The bartender didn’t talk much, and that suited me just fine. Nights like that don’t ask for company— they ask for silence… and someone to watch. That’s when I saw ’em, through the open doors of the courtyard. The rain had just stopped— that little breath of stillness when the last dr

The True Story It was the French Quarter, years ago. Midnight had already passed, but the city still pulsed like it always does. A saxophone was playing—soft, smoky, something you could almost lean against. The player was down by the old Woolworth’s building, and there, under the streetlight, two people began to dance. They weren’t dressed for it. They weren’t ballroom-perfect. One wore old raggedy tennis shoes, the other an old coat. Maybe they’d had too much to drink, maybe

There’s a place at the corner of paint and memory, where the night hums with stories and the light is never just electric. It’s the Lamplight Café . On the canvas it’s just a café—tables, chairs, a glow beneath the lamp. But the longer you look, the more it becomes something else: a gathering place for the broken, the searching, the in-between. At one of those tables stands a man carrying more than trays and plates. Once a preacher, now a waiter, he spends his evenings servin

Some paintings arrive like whispers. Others crash into you like thunder.This one came like both. I painted A Beautiful Ache  after a day that was too heavy to carry anymore. You know those days—the kind where your chest feels tight, where silence isn’t peace but pressure. I needed a way out, and for me that way is always through color. But if I’m honest, this painting isn’t just about me.It ’s about what I’ve witnessed in others. I watched a young couple face a loss no couple

By Esteban They weren’t born from sketches or plans. They emerged—one by one—from the smears, the streaks, the arguments between brush and canvas. Four women. Painted bold. Painted loud. Their eyes heavy with history, their mouths tight with memory. The one on the far left always struck me as a kind of matriarch—not soft, but hard like weathered wood. A woman who believed punishment could chase away shame. She reminded me of someone I once knew… someone who thought control co

—by Stephen “Esteban” Harrelson It started like any other night. Humidity hung low over the back porch where I paint and fight mosquitoes. The air was thick, the bugs were hungry, and curiosity came creeping in like a stray cat looking for trouble (Sophie literally has them everywhere!) So I did what any half-sane artist would do in the year 2025… I fed one of my own paintings into Google Lens. Big mistake. Within seconds, the machine spit back a name: Itzchak Tarkay. Israeli

On the painting: Le Chapeau Rouge She sat in their churches. Painted lips, hat tilted just so, she watched the room rise in song. She heard the hallelujahs echo off stained glass and knew— some of them believed it . Others were just trying to. But she saw the cracks. The theater. The aching, well-meaning deception that even they didn’t recognize. She watched their politicians too. The backroom deals. The polished speeches masking soul-for-sale exchanges. She watched as the li

I remember when I first realized my mom was slipping away. At first, she tried to hide it—jokes to cover forgotten names, little laughs when she’d lose her place. But I saw it. I felt it. And I never forgot it. Momma always loved flowers. She was always collecting little cuttings—borrowing a bulb from one neighbor, a stem from another. Some would take root. Some wouldn’t. Sometimes the lawn mower got them before they ever had a chance. But she never stopped planting. Never st

Blog Post: When Daughters Dance in Fire When our first daughter, Katherine, was born, there wasn’t a single functioning hospital in our part of Honduras. A hurricane had torn everything apart. We had to travel back to the U.S. just to have her safely. But Abigail and Sophia? They were born right here—up in the mountains, where we had almost nothing. There were days when it hurt to watch what my girls were going without. I knew what they  could  have had in the States—cleaner