I have spent a great deal of my life trying to differentiate between sex and sensuality. It feels like it is often a fine line that I have often crossed without really understanding which side of the line I was actually on. Some guys are just naturally oozing with a raw sensuality while others are very mechanical and get stuck in a pattern. One of my favorite lines from the play Chicago when they are in court is describing Amos making love to Roxy as he’s twisting his hands, as if rubbing her boobs but in the motion “…as if adjusting a carburetor. I love you honey, I love you”. I feel like most of my life has been lived on the sensual side. I love romance, soft light, am passionate about kissing, lips gently, but aggressively playing off your partner’s mouth, the tenderness of our lips colliding, wrapping, wet, licking, tasting. I like to look deep into the eyes of the person I am with to watch the expression on their face as you make love to them. I have recently fallen in love with the cover art from old romance novels that are illustrated in the most perfect vision imaginable. There is a passion, the embrace, the woman with her neck back, extended, bare as the man holds her in a firm embrace with a raging intensity in his eyes and a soft supple boldness to his mouth and lips. Those cover images just take you to that place and you can feel the sensuality oozing out for you to pick it up and buy it. Unfortunately, we don’t really see this in gay literature of this sort. So why is it that when men are together it is portrayed so differently? Recently my friend Alison, whom I adore, asked me if I would be interested in creating a cover for her upcoming book, about three men in a relationship. She has a basic outline and I love where she is going with it and I think the cover somehow should hearken back to those days of the old torrid romance novels, hence my research on the subject. Of course it will be about beautiful light. So does beautiful light make an image sensual? Men have sex in small cubical in the back room of a video arcade lit merely with the flicker of porn flashing across the screen. Is this actually just sex or does it cross the boundary of sensual. After all they are generally strangers and the light though artistic not necessarily romantic. In my mind’s eye I live and dwell in that world of the romance novel cover from the 50’s or possible 60’s. It’s my vision of my world and I see how much of this I bring to my work in the studio. I think most of my images are sensual without being sexual. Sometimes I work to the verge of those images crossing into a sexual nature. I have always been leery of seeing a man’s penis exposed in the image, because for most that distinguishes the line moving toward porn and I began this year with a questions “Does showing a man’s penis make an image pornographic” which turns out the be the most read posting I have written all year, so there seems to be a lot of people interested in the subject as there is no right answer because of its subjective nature in the mindset of the viewer? Some cultures are conditioned for it and some against. I know I discard an awful lot of images to get to the ones that really capture the essence of view on the subject. But it’s really what makes this sort of imagery fascinating and pulls us in. Pornography gives us the wanker; we are either wowed by something extraordinary in it, or merely click on searching for something better to ignite our fantasy. I am captivated by the images that make me want to linger and pull me in igniting something deep within myself. To me this is what this sort of art should be and what I am committed to produce with each image I work.
Category Archives: Theater
Defying Gravity
Last night at work one of the young kids with whom I co-manage at the UPS center, bought me one of those energy drinks, which he seems to be addicted to because he seems to consume them like water. Much to my surprise it was a greater boost than I imagined and I was wide awake working into the wee hours of the morning feeling like I had somehow defied gravity and was floating along into the night on a miraculous high. When I finally did go to bed, completely exhausted, I crashed and had a hard time getting up this morning. I had a family portrait scheduled fairly early, so I knew I had to get up and get things cleaned up and set up for the shoot, hence the tardiness of today’s posting. The wonder of it all was that somehow, I am not sure if it was the drink or just something kicked in, but I was having a blast last night back to working on photography. There was something utterly peaceful and productive working into the middle of the night, completely undisturbed.
Sometimes when I work on the same thing constantly I become immune to the process and often just push to get through it. But, last night I began to see things from a different perspective. The images I have been muddling through for the past year, seem to have a new meaning. I began to look at the process with a new fascination and became caught up in what I was working on with such detail. Obtaining perfection became the focus. I loved this feeling and was satisfied with my re-connection to the work. As I crawled into bed I realized what I had not felt it in a long time. Yesterday I was utterly frustrated and I beginning to see how hard I am pushing, and how that push is causing a separation from myself and my ideas, no longer able to recognize what brought me to this process from the beginning. I fear losing the organic nature that makes what I do interesting in the first place.
There is a wondrous moment at the end of the first act in the musical “Wicked”, where Elphaba (the Wicked Witch of the West) finally comes to terms with her difference and begins to recognize her given talents and turns against all reason to do what she feels is right in her heart. She musters all the powers within herself to take to a broom and suddenly fly into the air hovering above the stage singing about Defying Gravity.
“Something has changed within me
Something is not the same
I’m through with playing by the rules
Of someone else’s game
Too late for second-guessing
Too late to go back to sleep
It’s time to trust my instincts
Close my eyes: and leap! “
Those lyrics echo through my mind today as they seemed more poignant than ever, for I realize I have shared the same dream and passion with my views of the world and need to create what I am creating, especially here in a place like Montana.
“I’m through accepting limits
‘Cuz someone says they’re so
Some things I cannot change
But till I try, I’ll never know!
Too long I’ve been afraid of
Losing love I guess I’ve lost
Well, if that’s love
It comes at much too high a cost!
I’d sooner buy
Defying gravity
Kiss me goodbye
I’m defying gravity
And you can’t pull me down”
I can now see why those drinks can become so damn addictive.
Music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz from the musical WICKED
Idealistic Explosion of Talents
It’s like suddenly The Naked Man Project is kicking into overdrive and I am in heaven. Everyone in Europe and patrons I have been meeting through my social networks had all advised me that I needed to create a presence for myself, to begin to define and refine what it is I want to do. This is the most essential step of my process before anything else can happen and before I make the next step. In less than one month that presence is beginning to emerge and I am seeing a remarkable wonder and extraordinary beauty I have not recognized in myself in a long time. And yes I did get outside yesterday and worked in my garden for a couple of hours; as I transplanted delphinium and cleaned beds, suddenly, all that I have been doing came into sharp focus.
Now that Stephen has done all the housekeeping on most of the image files, I have begun working through each shoot, subject by subject. Wow, what an incredible group of people I had the privilege to work with and explore my creative process with over the years. And they are all here, from Montana. I am now skimming the cream of the crop of each series and extraordinary things are beginning to reveal themselves. I now am beginning to see more what others have been saying about the images for some time. I am often reluctant sometimes and find compliments hard to receive. It’s part of my backstage personality of those years in the theater where I remained hidden, but was the controlling force that kept the show and companies running each night. I tend to also be a fairly humble guy, who believes in keeping everything low key and simple, not the case anymore. This is becoming one of the greatest adventures of my life, every day now is filled with excitement, joy and wonder. My time in the garden yesterday also taught me that this does not have to happen at breakneck speed and to actually savor and enjoy the process as it unfolds. I am so jacked for when I will get to reveal this creation, but know I do not want to rush it or get sloppy.
I met with a new intern yesterday that I am actually jacked about having him join us. His name is Stopher, another gay kid that is funny, witty, smart and cute. He is going to take on the blog element of the site. We have found a module that will import this existing blog into the new site without much loss, and minimal adjustment. The new blog will become easier to archive and search for things. It still amazes me how massive my thoughts have exploded into this format. To be honest I thought we were going to have to start over, or somehow painstakingly transfer it one posting at a time, so I am much relieved to know it will be quite simple.
The Naked Man Project is now becoming a team collaboration of local talents and distant advisors. It feels much like creating a show in the theater where all of us function at our most brilliant capacity and are having a blast pulling it together. We challenge and push ourselves each day to see such huge progress. A show in the theater takes months of planning, preparation, rehearsal and tech before the curtain rises. I need to remind myself each day of this process and take a deep breath as I step into the beauty of this extraordinary work I have created, with which I have now surrounded myself.
Focus On Shooting
I have a new kid coming to work with me this afternoon who wants to work as an apprentice. I met with him yesterday and we are on the same page. He has a history of working in male nude photography on actual film. I am still looking for others that want to become involved in getting The Naked Man Project up and running. I see how powerful it can become with others bringing their talents to the table. I have been feeling so overwhelmed for some time. I realized part of my greatest talent as a stage manager was coordinating large theatrical productions on the road and that I am actually quite a great manager and proficient at the delegation of projects. My vision is big and I realize that I can no longer create it alone. Plus I have a lot to teach others so the insight gained would be a great experience. I believe this will eventually become a community project, but first of all I need to get it up and running for myself.
My energy and focus this week will be shooting. I have very actively been recruiting people who are interested in collaborating on images. My goal is to try and shoot something new each day. I know this is ambitious, but it feels like it’s where I need to be at this moment. With a new assistant I can finally focus and hopefully keep up a pace. I am also beginning to focus on the idea of shooting outside and using the natural beauty that surround us for that backdrop. I have a guy that’s coming who is interested in shooting some images of him fly fishing in a mountain stream in the nude. This actually excites me to no end. This is me and really hits of core of my own identity. I spent many of summers hiking the mountain lakes around me, peeling off my cloths and jumping into those waters naked. Someone asked me the other day, why don’t you shoot outdoors more? I really had to think about it. I guess part of it is that with my work in the theater I l really love the control of the light and being able to sculpt with that light. Shooting outdoors takes a lot more work and time and often the light is completely unpredictable: that light being perfect for shooting outside having very narrow windows of opportunity. I often tend to be too busy to actually pull it all together for myself, much less coordinate with others. Also being from Montana, we tend to take that vast beauty that surrounds us for granted. I have great difficulty shooting landscapes because I can’t seem to distill the essence of what I see and feel around me. But the falls in Montana are really the absolute best part of being here.
End Of Summer
Something in the air changes and it suddenly feels like fall. Labor Day is somehow that turning point weekend in the United States where the day after summer seems to disappear. It was the first football game of the season, the final family campout, and the last days of the rodeo. This morning I began putting together my fall schedule that will take me through to the end of the year. The University in back in session and I begin a new season of working on their shows tomorrow night. It is also the season when all the new students are back in town and I can begin my process of recruiting some new subjects. I need to get back into my studio again and begin shooting. It feels like I have been distracted the past month or so getting ready and going on the trip that I have not had much time to work on my imagery. I spent most of my spare time throughout the weekend pulling things together for the upcoming new website. It is progressing very well and we should begin putting it up on the server the next couple of days and then begin refining it. I am hoping to have something running by the end of next week, well at least the initial home pages and some of the galleries.
I still have so many images to work through that have piled up. It feels like I start a series and never quite get through it and then never quite get back to it. I have still only worked half way through the images of the trip to Europe and the Mineral County Fair and Rodeo images I took before I left. So I am really going to try to focus on getting caught up today. I have had a few jobs that I needed to complete last week that put me in delay on my personal stuff. I want to work on my yard now that it has cooled outside, but could not even seem to find time for that. The rest of this week I will be slammed but next week it will all begin to open up and I will get back to my fall creative work.
Autumns for me are the times that I accomplish my greatest nude image projects. Everything else begins to slow down as I put the gardens to bed and tie up loose ends from the summer. Glenn typically goes to North Dakota for several months to work on a soil-sampling project and I can totally get into sync with my own rhythm and work at a pace completely uninterrupted. I can work late into the night and often get up early to catch the morning light. Though with this blog project it does seem to eat a good chunk of my day. But there is something about the fall that I feel most focused. I somehow feel this one is going to become on of my most extraordinary ones ever. After beginning this project I felt I have a genuine focus this fall. There are now goals to accomplish and a standard to rise up and create. In a sense I feel like this year of my life has begun to go backwards. It’s like that movie where the guy reverses in aging. I am excited to my core again about who and where I am. It seems the age issues that I have been dealing with have somehow vanished and my life has taken on a greater purpose that is beyond myself.
