Art was Robert Moore’s ‘saving grace.’ Now his work graces T-shirts, walls and buildings in Iowa and beyond.

A boy with a hidden talent fell into the wrong group of people, leading him down a scary path. His job in corporate IT and project management left him feeling empty. It took Robert Moore going to the hospital in 2019 after a night of too much drinking for him to turn his life around and find a positive outlet: art.

“When I walked out, I told myself, ‘I ain’t letting this happen again. I’m not doing this again.’ I just told myself I’m not doing this shit no more,” Moore said.

“I had to literally go to the hospital because I made a bad choice. That’s crazy to me.”

Alcohol and drug abuse were Moore’s home remedy for unhappiness, he said, but they ultimately left him more empty. Once he figured out the cause of his negative feelings were the very things that his life had become, he made a decision.

“I was kind of able to more so understand why I was using, and then I could focus on how to stop. And I didn’t know that stopping using is what I needed to do,” he said, “I just felt like there was something we needed to change.”

Moore describes his mentality while working at his IT job as “chasing the bag,” climbing the corporate ladder. “It just drove me crazy,” he said. “It was not for me.”

“The old me wasn’t authentic. I had a boss one time tell me that I wasn’t authentic and that I say I was a lot. Even though I don’t appreciate the way she delivered that feedback, it made me really question about why I wasn’t being seen as authentic.”

Read more of B.Moore’s story on Little Village Mag, HERE.