Inspired by Americana singer KaiL Baxley’s song “Boy Got It Bad,” I created a series of three drawings in which a boy sails off for better horizons on a raft of his own making. Rooted in blues and gospel, the song’s deep resonant humming compels my protagonist through the grueling efforts of chopping down trees to assemble a raft, then dragging the heavy log raft through a vast landscape towards a distant river, where finally, in the third artwork, the boy “rides that river out of country lane.” I intended the drawings to pay homage to the singer’s southern heritage through the boy’s unrelenting determination to go on and the artworks’ overall gritty appearance created through layers of dark graphite. My muse, a friend who kindly posed for these drawings, embodies the unyielding spirit of the boy who not in spite of his inner-nature, but because of his inner-nature, forges his own path in life.