Today we’d like to introduce you to Mark Canfield
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I had family in Hancock County and would visit since I was pre-school age. I mostly grew up in Arlington Texas, but moved to Sneedville when I was a teenager. At age of fifteen I nearly died from a brain infection. It caused me to lose most of my memories from before then, so I feel as if my life began at age 15. At age 17 I won first place in Powell Valley short story competition. After high school I went to East Tennessee State University (ETSU). Every chance I got I would go on a road trip with some friends to do ground theory sociology. Eventually this led me to making a documentary with some friends, One of whom now has an Emmy. Incidentally, at the time of the documentary’s start, the people we intended to interview went missing or died mysteriously. Some of them had yet to reach middle age which was a complete surprise to me. With a confused mind from the turn of events and loss of my documentary project, my friend Mat Gugalka convinced me to work with him at Joe Exotic’s zoo. It’s now made famous from Netflix’s Tiger King. Whilst having a mental break down I succumbed to administering psychoactive medications to relieve myself of depression. As a result, the experience I had while working for Joe Exotic burned itself into my mind like the biblical tales of fire and brimstone. My personal experience was like something between fantasy and horror as the medications and trauma confused my mind into hallucinations. All of this is described in great detail in the book, as well as in others. When working for Joe was too much for me, I returned to ETSU where I finished my bachelor’s degree. Currently, I am enrolled in the Epidemiology master’s program at ETSU and the Pre-Medicine path at Walter State. I’m also currently trying to build up my resume to volunteer at clinics in Knoxville. My goal is to become a physician to provide my community with affordable healthcare.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Life is a struggle for anyone, I think, but the brain infections at fifteen left me with bipolar disorder. This combined with a high IQ has led me to have difficult situations in life. I’d over think everything, so I used to drink too much to dull my mind. I even made a whimsical choice to investigate rumors of people who lived in the woods and took LSD. When I went to investigate them, for a documentary, I found out more than I wanted to. For those who don’t know ground theory, in summery, it’s living with the people you research and “going with the flow” as part of the whole. So, I was dramatically lost for a while. People kept putting drugs in my food and drinks to the point I was barley able to take notes. Yet, I found better leads for my documentary. The whole time I did this I realized they weren’t “living in the woods”, as I was told, these were simply homeless people who attracted hipsters and hippies who liked to party. After that I took my leads to off-grid communities where I did more research. When my research documentary failed due to friendships collapsing over miscommunication, I returned to Hancock County for my family, I quit drinking to be a better role model. Seeing how anything I did could influence my younger brother, I decided to stay sober. This, and quitting tobacco was one of the most difficult tasks I accomplished. Yet, I admit I got medicine to help. After three weeks of treatment I felt refreshed and better than I could ever remember. Now I write books to sort out the mixed emotions from the epic adventures I once embarked on.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
A friend once told me, “There is no difference between art and science if you’re doing it right.”, and I’ve tried to apply that to everything I do. When I do projects for school and when I make art for the public, there is always a balance of art and science. When considering my books, I have already written a sequel to Days in Daze with Joe Exotic which is called Days in a Psych Ward. This is about when I just got back from Joe Exotic’s and had a mental break down which lead me to a mental hospital. The psyche meds made me hallucinate worse than any nightmare, I was in a perpetual state of Hell. With a scientific mind, I try to explain the experiences logically but am at a loss as religiosity takes over. In this book I describe the struggles of going in and out of mental hospitals because of the medications the doctors insisted I take. I describe in great detail how vivid the demonic creatures were and explain how portals to other dimensions felt as I passed through them to various other levels of Hell. Despite all this, I manage to take those situations and turn them into jokes. Just like my first book, this is one people will be able to laugh with me as I narrate the ironies and oddities in each chapter. Similar to how Shawn of the Dead mixes horror and comedy, I found a way to make my personal demons into a joke.
Alright, so to wrap up, is there anything else you’d like to share with us?
Other than writing and premed, I like to paint. I take the images of human suffering into mind and apply them to characters in paintings. When studying sociology there was a huge amount I learned about family dysfunction, and I combine this with medical knowledge to make something between adorable and horrifying. When I studied sociology, I learned people can endure great pain, but with perseverance we can overcome this. Yet, it may not always be consistent, or it may change with how they talk and behave around others. Sometimes one person can seem innocent, while with another that same innocent could be perceived as monstrous. I like to combine these dualities of the human psyche to create symbolic images which are representative of society. For me, this is how I battle the chaos and sufferings of the world. I take the inevitable pains and fuse them with the bursts of joy we live for.
Pricing:
- Days in Daze with Joe Exotic, $16.99 at Barnes and Nobel website
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksdaysindaze/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWsmRPj8j-vpYoYxCmCTXSg
