Behind The Artworks: Scott Collins - PURPLE PAIN (2024)

Several years ago, around the time the recordings for Purple Pain were first being conceived, I had an encounter with a mystic; the type of mystic who rarely remembers posthumously anything they channel, but nonetheless a galactic autobahn.

We met at a private show I was performing with The Smoking Flowers, my other band with my wife Kim. Before the show, she made a comment to me about my grandmother, somehow knowing her by name (without knowing her) and telling me she was winking at me (something my grandmother would regularly do; a behavior subtlety only known to family).

I was convinced. I knew I needed to sit in a trance with her. So, a couple days later, Kim and I went to see her. As we were walking across the room in her house to her tarot table, she was stopped in her tracks by something. She grabbed my right arm, looked into my right eye, and said “you have the ability to look into someone’s right eye and truly see them...to tell if they are sane or not...if they have ill intentions...if they are stable or if they possess dark energy. Stare into their right eye and if you see their iris and pupil shake, beware. Their entire right eye will be shaking to your vision. This is how you know.”

This proved to be true. And valuable. A couple years later while doing plant medicine work in Mexico, the awareness of this aptitude saved my metaphysical life.

Fast forward a few years. Upon the completion of recording and mixing Purple Pain, I pilgrimaged back to visit my mystic seer friend. It was the middle of January, a cold tundra of a drive. The title of this album dawned on me during that late-night solo traverse. I laughed out loud as it happened.

“Modern science” has shown the color purple to vibrate at a higher frequency than all others in the light spectrum perceivable to humans. It’s also oddly the color of a “black” eye or a bruise. It is the color of a scab, which is a sign of healing in progress for a human from said bruise. It also happens to be the favorite color of all the album’s subjects.

While in the tundra, I stayed with my friend and fellow artist Coley Kennedy, a musician and fine art photographer whose work I’ve admired as long as I’ve known him. After coffee together on the morning after I arrived, as I was walking out the door to attend my reading, Coley said “I was thinking, if you don’t mind, I’d like to photograph you while you are here. It’s something we’ve never done, and…,” he then almost uttered something else but stunted his own speech, so I filled the space and graciously replied “Absolutely. I’d be honored.”

That afternoon, reunited with my mystic seer peer, I brought her up to date on my Shakespearean life experiences. This included the conception and recording of my first “solo” album and its title. She of course had no recollection of her right eye download years prior, but she did strongly channel “your face has to be on the album cover...but only HALF OF IT...The half with your right eye.”

Later that evening, over drinks and oysters with Coley, I began sharing some of the lesser personal details of my session, including her album cover comment. Coley immediately stopped me and commented, “Dude, I almost said something to you earlier! As you were walking out the door to your appointment! But I was concerned it might sound weird or schooly, so I withdrew. I was going to say...if you are open to it, I have an odd idea...I’d like to photograph just HALF of your face!!”