NSAEN is proud to spotlight the work of Simon Bois, creator of Tattooed Steel LLc, whose raw stainless steel engravings explore trauma, survival, healing, and human resilience.
Simon continues to be supported (since 2008) in his artistic endeavors, as well as his editorials, by www.lawfran.com @Fran Haasch and @Rhett Jones.
Readers wishing to support Simon’s suicide-awareness initiative and Tattooed Steel LLc project through Johnny Depp’s People’s Artist competition may vote daily here: https://peoplesartist.org/2026/simon-bois-jLiR
VICTORY
The Story Behind the Piece
By Florida Night Train – Published by NSAEN
Some pieces of art are created from inspiration.
Others are forged in survival.
Victory was born during one of the darkest periods of my life …. in the middle of a hostile divorce, public humiliation, spiritual disillusionment, and the collapse of everything I thought would last forever.
The piece itself is a 36” x 46” sheet of stainless steel engraved with the scene of Golgotha … “the place of the skull” where Christ was crucified. Rising above the skull are three hollow crosses. Behind them is 1 Corinthians 13 written in Hebrew, the biblical passage defining love: patient, kind, forgiving, and enduring.
At the time I created this piece, those words haunted me.
Because while I had heard sermons about unconditional love my entire church life, I found myself suddenly surrounded by judgment, gossip, accusations, and abandonment when my marriage collapsed.
The truth is complicated, and I refuse to tell this story dishonestly.
I was not a perfect husband.
For years, I believed being a provider was enough. I worked hard. I made sure bills were paid. I protected my family materially. But emotionally and spiritually, I failed in many ways. I did not yet understand what it truly meant to lead with presence, tenderness, communication, and emotional connection. Looking back, I understand why my marriage slowly became emotionally empty. That was on me.
At the same time, some truths remained buried for years.
Early in our marriage, my wife confessed to finding herself in a compromising situation with another man during a work-training conference in Texas. I forgave her immediately and never spoke publicly about it because I wanted to protect my children and preserve the dignity of my family.
Years later, during an emotionally starving marriage, I found myself developing an emotional connection through conversations with another woman online. Nothing physical ever happened, but the emotional attachment itself became devastating to my marriage and ultimately led to divorce proceedings and accusations that changed my life permanently.
What followed was one of the most painful experiences I have ever lived through.
Restraining orders.
Investigations.
Public assumptions.
Whispers from people I once considered brothers and sisters in faith.
Social media gossip, slander, and legal threats.
Alienation from my children.
The feeling of becoming a monster in the eyes of people I loved, and worst of all, becoming one in the eyes of my children.
I remember sleeping on a cot inside my fabrication shop beside this very piece while working on it through the night. The shop was silent except for grinders, torch heat, and my own thoughts. Many nights, I sat there completely broken, shattered in my soul, trying to understand how people who preached grace and forgiveness could become so quick to condemn. How the words ‘for better or for worse’ suddenly felt conditional.
One of the most painful realities of divorce is that children often become casualties of unresolved hatred between adults. To this day, I still see the emotional scars left on my children from the collapse of our marriage and the years that followed. That pain is difficult to describe. Unanswered calls. Declined invitations. Missed birthdays. Watching the distance quietly grow between a father and his children while trying to understand how it all unraveled. And the list goes on. But again, all that is on me.
Years later, watching Johnny Depp publicly fight to reclaim his name resonated with me deeply. Not because our stories are identical, but because his case exposed something society rarely wants to discuss openly: men, too, can experience emotional destruction, public humiliation, manipulation of perception, and assumptions of guilt long before truth is fully examined.
For years, I remained mostly silent. Until now.
Not because I had nothing to say, but because I wanted to protect my children from even greater damage while they were young. Silence, however, comes at a cost. Over time, narratives harden. Assumptions become identity. And eventually you realize that telling the truth is not always an act of revenge … sometimes it is an act of survival.
And yet, despite everything, this piece is not titled Bitterness.
It is titled Victory.
Because over time I realized something important: if suffering turns us into hatred, then suffering wins.
The hollow crosses in this piece represent what faith becomes when love disappears from it. They symbolize religion and faith without mercy, belief without compassion, and appearances without truth. But behind those crosses still stands the biblical definition of love itself, written across the sky in ancient Hebrew like a reminder that truth remains truth even when human beings fail to embody it.
This piece is not an attack on Christ. It is a confrontation with hypocrisy. It is also a confrontation with myself.
Pain forced me to face my own failures as a husband, my emotional immaturity, my pride, my neglect, and the ways I contributed to the collapse of my marriage. Growth rarely comes gently. Sometimes it arrives through humiliation, grief, and complete destruction of the identity you once hid behind.
What remains today is not perfection. Not vindication. Not revenge. Only perspective…and truth.
My marriage gave me three extraordinary children whom I love beyond words. And despite
the scars left behind, I remain thankful for them and for the growth that emerged from the ashes of failure.
I believe many people … men and women alike … suffer silently behind public narratives that are far more complicated than they appear. I believe churches sometimes fail the very people they are called to heal. And I believe unconditional love is far rarer than most people are willing to admit.
But I also believe love still wins.
Not weak love.
Not performative love.
Not social media love.
Real love.
The kind that survives betrayal, judgment, shame, and heartbreak without fully surrendering its humanity.
That is why this piece is called Victory.
Because despite everything, I still believe love will outlive hypocrisy.
If this story or this piece speaks to you, I would be honored to have your support.
You can vote daily for my work and help support the broader message behind Tattooed Steel LLc and suicide awareness here: https://peoplesartist.org/2026/simon-bois-jLiR
Tattooed Steel: www.facebook.com/tattooedsteelllc
Night Train: www.facebook.com/floridanighttrain
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