I left Indianapolis for a lot of reasons.
None of them matter.
What matters is why I came to Johnstown, Pennsylvania.
A few years ago, I came here with a friend who lives in the area for a cryptid event. Judge me if you will—I love cryptids, strange creatures, and the uncanny. My art has always lived in that space. Besides, the event did its job: it brought me here.
The event itself had bad luck all around. Everything was orderly, organized, and well advertised, but local attention drifted elsewhere and it didn’t line up with regional travel patterns.
It happens.
Events succeed and fail for reasons that often have nothing to do with effort.
But I liked the town.
Not in a tourist way.
Not in a “this could be something” way.
It just felt like a place I wanted to be.
Fast forward to last year.
Because of malfeasance by others—details that don’t belong here—my original plan to leave Indianapolis collapsed. My intended destination was no longer realistic, and for a moment, I almost gave up on the move entirely.
Then I did something unromantic.
I looked at job listings with my day-job employer.
There was an opening in Windber, Pennsylvania—close enough to get me into place, close enough to take a chance.
I don’t claim to know what is providence and what is coincidence.
But I do know this:
The answer came when I capitulated.
And it has been everything I hoped.
So here we are.
We are no longer passing through.
We have bought our home.
And now we are setting ourselves to the business of helping Johnstown be Johnstown.
Not as outside saviors.
Not as investors chasing upside.
Not as people with a master plan.
But as people who loved this place enough, from a single visit, to move here—
And to convince my wife to buy a house here before she had even visited it.
This city has strength.
It has character.
And it sits in a stunningly beautiful valley.
She needs to be remembered, respected, and steadily rebuilt by people willing to stay.
So this is us.
Planting a flag.
Offering our hands.
Tell us where you need us.
—
The Cernunnos Foundation
