“Some things that may or may not relate to these drawings: A professional suggested I take anti-depressants. I declined. About the same time I started drawing fireworks. I didn’t know what they meant or why I was drawing them. I was confused and embarrassed by this lack of meaning, but they kept coming. I could draw them no matter how I felt. I read that fireworks were first used in China in the 12th century to scare away negative spirits. I envied a world that not only recognized spirits, but scared the negative ones away with small man made explosions. About the same time, I read in a magazine that antidepressants have a hard time performing better than the placebo pills they are tested against. Scientist cannot explain it, but almost as many people who take the fake pills say they feel relief from their depression. The blood flow in their brains actually changes in the same positive way that it does for the people who take the real pills. I felt a connection between the Chinese fireworks and the placebo effect, and some relief in all the things we don’t understand. At some point the fireworks grew more and more abstract, and messy, and complicated, and I became if not content then at least willing to make things that didn’t have any apparent meaning.”

—Mike Mills