Jeremy Blake

Jeremy Blake's short life was highlighted by great success, artistic achievement and an intense romance but, ultimately brought down by paranoia, despair, and ultimately suicide. In October of 1971 in Fort Sill, Oklamhoma, a young married couple Anne and Jeffrey Blake had their first child, son Jeremy. Father Jeffrey worked as a real estate agent, and soon moved the small family to Takoma Park, Maryland, a suburb of Washington D.C. Jeremy's parents soon divorced and he split his time between his mother in the suburbs and his father in The District of Columbia. Mother Anne later recalled the young Jeremy filling notebooks with drawings, first of mazes, and his own comic book characters, and later becoming fixated with drawing Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) type spaceships. Jeremy attended various schools in the Takoma area, taking his first art classes during the summer of his eighth grad year. Soon after, when he was seventeen, his father died of complications from AIDS. Jeremy eventually earned a bachelor's degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago 1n 1993, followed by his master's in 1995 from the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia. He had grown into a strikingly handsome young man, and he reportedly met his future romantic partner Theresa Duncan at a Washington area punk rock concert around this time. Jeremy moved to New York City, where he soon again encountered Theresa Duncan, five years older than himself, who traveled in the same avant-grade and literary circles as he. They became romantically involved immediately, and quickly moved in together. She was a rising star in the computer gaming industry, specializing in designing and writing CD Roms for young girls. She helped Jeremy establish a career by hiring him as an illustrator, and soon Jeremy was exhibiting his computer-generated prints at galleries in New York and Washington. Jeremy was photographed for Vogue Hommes magazine in 2000, since he was such a glamorous rising star in the New York art scene. But the ambitious couple soon decided to move to Los Angeles, where Duncan intended to produce her screenplay. Jeremy continued with success to work on his digital video art, which he described as "moving paintings." He was hired by Paul Thomas Anderson to create digital effects for a dream sequence in Punch-Drunk Love (2002), and by alternative rock music icon Beck to design art for his album "Sea Change." Around this time, his girlfriend Duncan, having a difficult time getting her screenplay green-lighted, began having what has been describes as "paranoid delusions" revolving around The Church of Scientology. For unknown reasons, she believed that powerful Scientolgists were putting up roadblocks to her success in Hollywood. Jeremy soon joined her in her suspicions, and both would rant to their friends about the evil vendetta that the Church of Scientology had for them. They suspected almost everyone of being closet Scientologists, and began alienating friends, co-workers and most of their Hollywood connections. They began compiling evidence to file a lawsuit against The Church. The couple decided to move back to New York City soon after being evicted from their rented Malibu bungalow because of erratic behavior. They secured an apartment in the rectory of St. Mark's Church, and began entertaining friends, and working on their separate projects. Their paranoia over The Church of Scientology followed them and soon both Blake and Duncan were sending emails to friends and acquaintances enumerating their grievances against the Church. The couple hosted a large fund-raising party for repairs on St. Mark's, and then refused to attend it to the dismay of their friends and acquaintances. A few weeks later, on July 10, 2007, Jeremy arrived home at the apartment to find Theresa Duncan dead on the floor of their bedroom. She had ingested a fatal combination of pills and alcohol, leaving a suicide note telling Jeremy that she loved him and was at peace with her decision. Friends of Jeremy's hovered over the young artist for a week, in a discreet suicide watch. Jeremy eventually convinced his friends that he was restless, and needed to get back to work. On July 17, 2007, Jeremy boarded the subway saying that he intended to go to his office at Rocksstar Entertainment. Instead he took the train to the end-of-the-line at Rockaway's 122nd Street Beach. He removed all his clothing and piled it neatly under a pier, placing his wallet on top along with a short suicide note written on the back of a business card. He walked naked into the Atlantic ocean. On July 22 the body of Jeremy Blake was spotted by a fisherman four and one half miles off the coat of Sea Girt, New Jersey, 35 miles south of Rockaway Beach.