I was born in Suffolk, Virginia. My parents were hard-working people in the time when the rights of African-Americans were violated. People didn’t discuss their private lives at home. Sexual and domestic violence weren’t talked about unless behind closed doors. At five years old, I was victimized by domestic violence and sexually abused by a family babysitter. At the age of six, I drew and painted and it helped calm me down when I was angry or confused. I found that art supplies were costly, so I got a job doing yard work to make money to buy supplies. Creating art separated me from reality and gave me a feeling of utopia.There was little for a child to do at that time, except sports, and I was not a sports person.

I isolated myself and blamed myself for that shame, with anger, secrecy, and silence. Domestic violence taught me early that home is a dangerous place where people hurt one another. Moms and dads fight, and the children inherit anger, physical pain, humiliation, and emotional damage. Whether you are a survivor who has experienced emotional or physical neglect, domestic violence, sexual abuse…with the same sex or opposite sex…either in civilian life or in the military…the effects are all the same. Victims have low self-esteem, high divorce, and distrust.

Mr. King submitted the same narrative for his pieces, “Abused Ponies”, “Affected by Domestic Violence”,“Babysitter”, and “Nymphs”.