Forgiving

Thom Bierdz is compelled to create. Born and raised in Kenosha, Wisconsin, Thom did well in school and had big dreams. At 20, he left for Hollywood, and four years later landed a leading role as Phillip Chancellor III on The Young And The Restless. At the end of his three-year contract, he left the show to pursue film roles, but just one month later, an unspeakable tragedy altered Thom's path when his paranoid schizophrenic brother, Troy, killed their mother.

In the years following the murder, Thom found little personal satisfaction in his acting and began transforming his thoughts, emotions, and subconscious into color and texture on canvas. Painting allowed Thom, in his words, "to make sense of the senseless; to make something beautiful out of something tragic." This need increased when his remaining brother Gregg committed suicide during a paranoid depression.

Thom questioned his own mental stability due to this history of filial paranoia, and became determined to maintain his sanity by depicting the insanity through his art.

On September 12, 2009 Thom Bierdz received the Human Rights Campaign's Visibility Award for his human rights work on behalf of the mentally ill. His book, Forgiving Troy: A True Story of Murder, Mental Illness and Recovery , is about his journey over the last 20 years as I came to terms with trying to make sense out of what happened.