Block was born to the beat of the 70s to a loving and humble hard-working working-class family, where he enjoyed his mother’s love of music hanging around the record player and vinyls regularly playing everything from pop to rock. This was the foundation for the spectrum he now appreciates in the art world. It was his father’s sacrifice in purchasing a computer in those early formative years that would have a massive impact in what would play out in later years. When it broke the first time, it cost a lot of money to repair, so the second time, Block opened it and repaired it himself, all at the age of 10.
Academia was never appealing to Block in his early years. He would be first into school in the morning because the first kid got to go around with the attendance book. In later school years, he would distract himself writing poetry when he should have been studying. This was the foundation of the “Muse”. Taking apart computers and wanting to do the same in the human condition was going to be no different. It would become the bedrock of the character that would rarely go with the flow of a mainstream “narrowtive”, instead always questioning why.
Block was a very responsible kid looking after younger siblings, but it was when he got to work for one of the largest IT companies in the world at a young age that he discovered the wild lifestyle. This discovery, with money, can be a dangerous combination. Not just enjoying all it offered, it was a study and an exploration to him. This all culminated in a realisation that it had to end, so Block moved away from that lifestyle and began to get back on his feet. His belief in absolute truth and a passion for its pursuit landed him in a religious cult, where he would spend nearly a decade. He was even driven around in their sportscars in America in preparation to being one of them. When the realisation hit of a cult, Block, true to form, analytically extracted himself, as opposed to storming out in a pain-ridden rant. He later used this in helping others who had loved ones trapped in such cults.
This whole time never shook Block’s faith in Christ. Later finding the fellowship of genuine church folk, Block worked on the streets with the homeless and observed the sufferings that they experienced. The appreciation for seeing the unseen in society would later be a metaphor for Block’s poetical style.
Block only just recently rediscovered his poetry skills after a 33-year hiatus of life’s lived learnings. Now with a loving wife (amazing editor) and a young family, Block’s care and consideration for humanity and the human condition grows even stronger. His wife’s love for reading, books and etymology has rubbed off on him and now, later in life, he has a greater appreciation for non-indoctrinated group-think academia.
Entering NFT as a patron of the arts, Block soon realised that his collection unsurprisingly was largely related in or around expressions of the human condition. The highs and lows faced personally & collectively have come through in his works. The collector now becoming the artist…