LEWISTON (NEWS CENTER Maine) -- Michael Libby has been an artist since he could draw photos for his grandmother; but like many others, much of Libby's inspiration lately has come from pain.
"When my brother died and it was such a sudden loss that my world just tilted or shifted and so I felt off-balance," says Libby about his brother Reno, who died from a heroin overdose. "I was trying to document something that I could contain that grief."
Libby started walking parking lots, and drawing crude mock-ups of them, then painting them.
"Just these shapes of the different parking lots and I would count my steps and put in the numbers and I found comfort in the counting."
He later realized he was containing his feelings in those lots.
"At a solo show I had this individual come up and say, 'I thought all parking lots were shaped the same,' and immediately I knew I had accomplished a great thing, that this person could look at other things. That’s quite an assumption isn’t it? And that she was able to consider that assumption, I just thought, wow, now she’s seeing it. That was a beautiful moment for me."
But beautiful moments have been brief for Libby. In 2008, his sister was killed in a motorcycle crash. Then in 2012, he lost another brother to suicide. Grief like that can stop a person in their tracks, but Libby wanted to understand it. He went to school to become a substance abuse counselor.
"I was asking myself what is the benefit of using heroin? Even the question seemed just really disturbing to me, but I was trying to challenge myself and to understand," says Libby. The pain also fueled his motivation to change the conversation about addiction. Suddenly Libby turned to sewing.
He designed a quilt titled, Opium: A Comforter.
"In the center square this hearth, was this ox blood red with a rubber stamp of a poppy pod that has been cut and is oozing opium."
From the idea of the comforting and loving feeling of opioids, to the lift and eventual fall of getting high, Libby started sewing something a bit more tricky. "If you think about it a hot air balloon is like a quilt, it’s a little bit more risky. I’ve never sewn a hot air balloon before."
He is creating a hot air balloon with the chemical compound of heroin sewn onto it. Libby plans to fly it as a sort of billboard, hoping to spark some change through uncomfortable conversation.
He has a Kickstarter campaign to help him cover some of the upfront costs, and to help him start a non-profit he calls LIFT: to help communities better help those struggling with substance abuse.
For more information on Libby's goal, click here.