Though I have reached out into the world I still feel like I am confined within my small provincial town of Missoula.  I know it is time to begin thinking past myself and begin letting my idealism soar beyond who I have become here.  I need to begin to network into a larger collective of people who will challenge the way I see the world and can help me grow.  I feel like I have been stuck in the same place for a long time and it’s now time for a much broader perspective.  The things that I love about Montana and that anchor me here are also the things that hold me back.  Yes, I am on the Internet, and yes I contribute, but I feel I often stay where I feel safe, visiting the same sites in my toolbar and perhaps spend too much time on Facebook and maintaining the new site.  At the beginning of this year I spent a great deal of time looking at other artists and communicating with them. Somehow during the course of the year trying to bring it the web has consumed the later half of the year.  Some times the blog takes me twenty minutes to write and sometimes, like the one about HIV issues in my community the other day, took the entire day.  Once this blog project gets put to rest I should have more time to spend on the new site.  My vision for it is astonishing as I begin to bring in all those whose works I admire.  I would like the blog to continue, but I want the focus to now go toward others, exploring different media of art, dialogue with other artist, and writing about the history of male nude art.  It cannot be an everyday sort of thing like it has, and will allow me to spend more time to really explore the things with which I am most fascinated and intrigued.  To write something everyday and maintain it has been a major undertaking and it far more consuming then I ever thought possible.  Then to work a regular job on top of all of it, my days are just spent in the process with next to no time for myself.  But it has become a year of commitment and devotion and I thankful to have undertaken it.  I am sorry I have ignored so many fascinating people along this journey, just because I couldn’t find the time to make it all happen.  I have barely been out of the studio for almost a year now and there is a part of myself that feels it has stagnated.  I know for sure I have lived far too much in my head and not enough in my physical self and my body is now screaming out for some physical activity.  The possibilities of making money with all this doesn’t seem to occupy my thoughts as much anymore, but the focus now seems to be on doing what feels right and creating a sense of collaboration and sharing quality ideals.  This is where I actually began the process and it’s where I need continue the process.  I feel the overall integrity will outshine anything else and perhaps this is what will endure long beyond myself.  I look at the great photographers I have admired, Dorothea Lang, Diane Arbus, Paul Strand, Fred Holland Day, Minor White and Robert Mapplethorpe and I have a better understanding for their passions to create.  Part of becoming an artist is the struggle, nothing is easy, but I have always enjoyed the process and I have always struggled, and the struggle never seems to stop.  But it is the imagery of these great artists that endure and can excite us upon every viewing.  I now see I have so many friends with these gifts that I now to embrace and share.  This project, has brought too much of the focus to myself, and not enough on what surrounds me.  The path is no longer mine but that of a community.

I am finally back in the studio shooting again and the process now seems so completely different? My approach is different. It’s defiantly moving toward making a stronger connection to the subjects. It seems now that others are more aware of my style they are more willing to trust where I will take them, whereas before it often felt like I was blindly leading them and the process become more of a leap of faith for them. In think there is something heroic in all of us, we often do not see it for ourselves, but often it can be seen by others. I am praised for my gift of taking the seemingly ordinary and exposing the extraordinary with in. Really, truly figuring out what is extraordinary in others. I had a kid a while back who came to me for some images, we did a shoot, and he seemed discontent with the process. I worked up the images and he still seemed discontent with the images. I think he was looking for something a little more sexually alluring and felt that he was not in good enough shape to we worthy of my style of images. When he used the images he cropped them not to show his body but only the expression of his face. This surprised me. We never really communicated there after so I left the image alone and did not use them. But recently I have begun looking at those images again and see the real beauty that we had actually captured. And when I began to put those images in collections of similar styles they seem to fit perfectly.

I know I still have self-doubt about my own self-image but recently I have begun looking at myself differently in the mirror. I am seeing something I had not recognized before, a different version of myself, this time not middle-aged, with wrinkles, who has gained a little weight, but now with a vibrant vitality. It’s almost like the winkles have almost erased themselves, as all the things that I saw as negative now seem comforting. I went to a Christmas Party last weekend with strangers who didn’t know me. The discussion of age come up and when I revealed how old I was everyone at the table was astonished. They assumed I was much younger. It actually quite startled me, and I began to look for traces of what they had seen to make that assumption.

I began the first day of this year creating a self portrait of myself, that would become the profile image of me for the blog, trying to project a certain confidence and warmth that others might be inclined to believe in and follow. I remember working very hard on the image and emotionally not being in a very good place, feeling doubt, a certain amount of anxiety that lacked the confidence I was trying to project. Through out the year I have been looking at a lot of self-portraits of other people, particularly artists, and I am awestruck by many of those images. There is an honesty to them that really captures the essence of who I perceive them to be, from their communication and body of work. I now see in my own mirror that man of confidence and it is time to photograph myself for who I am. Certainly in my own style, but to capture what I have become through the course of this project and year. It seems it is far easier to photograph others and not one’s self. Since I am the photographer nobody seems to photograph me. I come from a non-photographic linage; we just don’t photograph each other. I have very few images growing up, mostly because we could not afford the process. It is time now to create a new self-image and honestly look at what I have become.

I saw the movie version of West Side Story with Natalie Wood when I was in high school and it had such a profound impact on me that it changed my perceptions of the world and shaped my emotional existence for years to come. For those of you who do not know the story of West Side Story it is about a man, Tony, who is an ex-member of a gang, called the Jets, in a lower class neighborhood of 1950’s New York City. His, buddy, Riff, who has taken over Tony’s leadership role in the gang is now in a rumble with the Porto Rican rival group the Sharks run by Bernardo. Riff goes to Tony to elicit his help. Tony agree, but sing a song of elation about feeling the itch of something extraordinary in this life that is just around the corner. Both gangs meet at a public dance and square off when suddenly, something unexpected, forbidden and extraordinary happens. Tony spies Maria, Bernardo’s sister, across the crowded dance floor and magic happens. Their souls are instantly united defying all reason, logic, rendering them completely oblivious against the racism and hate of the world in conflict around them. The moment is wondrous while it lasts, but soon is shattered as the rage between the two rivals tears them asunder, escalating the conflict. Tony spends the night roaming the alleyways, star struck searching for his newfound love. They somehow secretly meet on a fire escape outside her bedroom and profess their love, and agree to meet up the following morning to run away together. But somehow amongst a lot of scuttle and chaos Tony ends up killing Maria’s brother while trying to unite the gangs and becomes hunted by Bernardo’s second, Chino who has a gun. Bernardo’s grief stricken girlfriend, Anita then finds Tony in Maria’s bedroom and in one of the most glorious songs of theater history, Maria, through the power of love, transforms Anita’s vehement hate convincing her to help Tony. And the remainder of the movie becomes a remarkable battle of wills as hate is explored through the most remarkable music ever written to a bittersweet climax.

The message here was strong and clear to me, as a young boy growing up in the small town of Superior in the mountains of western Montana, that I was free to love whom I chose despite any irreconcilable differences from the world I lived. What was felt in the heart could be manifested in a song of destiny and could defy all boundaries. I remember thinking at this moment I have an irrepressible desire to love a man. Though the culture around me saw it as taboo, I knew I could somehow follow my heart and find my true love. To me West Side Story was a celebration of forbidden love and in my head Maria, figuratively becomes a man, and that this story was somehow about me. I suddenly believed that romance would prevail, that being true to ones own passions, idealism and belief could transform the unknown world that surrounded me and I could face whatever perils lie in it’s path. Suddenly, there was hope and possibility where I had not known it before, and an acceptance of my self began to glimmer deep within me. I still watch this movie every couple of years, and it still resonates with a strong emotional wallop that overwhelms me to tears. Looking back I now see it’s what drew me to the theater. It has stirred an undying passion for musical theater and would become a compass in which I would guide my life. I realize now how powerful art is to transform our lives and change the course of our existence. It gives us a new vision sometimes, outside of ourselves, which we are often too afraid to examine. It gives us dreams and it gives us hope of a better future where we can face our fears and doubts. Somehow, “somewhere, well find a new way of living.”

Incidentally I didn’t find out until years later, when I began working in theater, that most of the creative team that envisioned this masterpiece where actually gay. Perhaps this was their way of reaching out the world with a statement on same sex love told for an audience in the 50’s about forbidden love. But somehow I got the message loud and clear decades later in those sheltered mountains of Montana.

“There’s a time for us
Some day a time for us
Time together
With time to spare
Time to learn
Time to care
Someday”

Music by Leonard Bernstein; lyrics by Stephen Sondheim from the musical WEST SIDE STORY

Due to graphic nature of this image I had to crop for the internet, click on image if you are interested in seeing it in it’s entirety.

There was an article in a Montana paper I read that caught my attention: Montanans living with HIV face stigmas, uncertainty

What are the real barriers to HIV prevention? As a gay man who has lived through this epidemic, this question keeps haunting my thoughts. It seems we live in a time where disclosure of one’s status signifies discrimination. When people still feel shame for becoming infected and their pride and dignity can be stripped away. For those infected, the gossip mills, run rampant, driving people into a deeper closet from which they can not retreat, leading to irreparable emotional distress, sometimes resulting in suicide. Their lives becoming dysfunctional as they struggle to come to terms with finding a new sense of normalcy. We live in a time where it is considerably harder to disclose one’s status then ones sexuality and this breeds an environment that is devastating to our communities. There is still so much stigma attached to HIV that it becomes one of the most elusive and often ignored issues of our time. No one wants to talk about it as we all live in a seeming healthy bubble of denial. Is this the really thing we should live in dread of in these modern times? There still seems to be so much internalized loathing surrounding this issue that it has become the central dividing line of who we are as a movement. I would expect this sort of attitude from the religious gay hating zealots, but not from our own culture whose journey for existence is based on acceptance.

I know of many discordant couples, one positive the other not, who have had long healthy relationships without the other ever servo converting? This seems to indicate that a balance is possible and that to sleep with someone who is positive no longer equals death. Yet, so many infected people remain hidden for fear of some sort of retribution from a culture that thrives in ignorance, fear, and drama. It seems the barriers then for effective prevention should be based on demystifying those terrors associated with the virus and focusing on the positive healthy aspects of dealing with someone who might be positive. But we have done the opposite; instead we have shunned them and pushed them away, creating a negative attitude toward those who are infected, causing them to retreat. Not accepting them as a whole within our society. For some reason, culturally, we have perceived protection with a dismissive connotation because it has always been approached as too confining. People are unwilling to accept it as a standard and or demand it. Everyone only wants to rely on those who are positive to reveal their status and not accept responsibility for their own protection. Unfortunately, with the phobia that currently exits those who are infected are reluctant to reveal their status and remain silent.

So the real question becomes how do we break beyond this phobia? First we need to recognize that the paranoia surrounding the issue actually exists and is unhealthy. Next we need to eliminate the witch-hunt mentality and discrimination that surrounds those who have become infected so they feel they can live openly in a healthy environment. I recently had a friend who servo-converted; he lived a life of awareness surrounding HIV issues, was cautious, and yet still became infected. He marveled at how much his eyes were opened, as he saw the attitude toward both sides of that world, now in polar opposition as he felt he had to approach his life with trepidation for a new perceived fear. I have also known of others who were terrorized by someone trying to extract a vindictive revenge just to create drama. Until this sort of attitude can change, we all will live in fear and trepidation. This sort of thinking needs to be recognized as a barrier for things to change. Only then can we come to some sort of acceptance of ourselves and make the prevention effective against HIV.

I am down to the last two weeks of completing my goal on this project with twelve more posts to write. I have had a weekend to wind down after a terrible last week of trying to get things done before the years end and it gave me a chance to reflect back over what I have actually accomplished over the course of this year and I now see how truly impressive it has been. To be a lowly cowboy from Montana, to shoot creative artistic images of nude to near naked men, to expose myself, thoughts, ideas, dreams for others to share and to make my own dream come true has been quite an undertaking and I will end this year contented. A friend of mine in Tucson AZ was at a bar the other night where they had a series of erotic images being displayed and recognized my work amongst them and he texted me with excitement. I also was recently friended on Facebook by the painter, artist Wes Hempel who’s work I have adored for years. I sent him a note “We have the same birthday and I have to say it is an honor that you have requested me as a friend. I saw your work in a New York Gallery many years back and I was utterly spellbound by the healthy mystic quality you bring to gay culture. It is filled with love, compassion, acceptance something I have always striven to build within my own community but I am afraid have not been very successful at. You sir, are an inspiration to me and my method of working. Thank you very much.” To which he replied “Thank you, Terry, for such a beautiful note. Perhaps I’m drawn to your work for similar reasons, i.e., that it invites me, albeit initially via my interest in the erotic, into deeper questions and feelings. There’s so much of the person in your photographs, a real human presence. Often, it surprises me. I wonder, how did he do that? Talk about a healthy mystic quality. I’m honored that we share not only a birthday but a mutual sense of inspiration.” This was a moment of reckoning for me as I realized I had reached to real goal I had set for myself from the beginning. To become a recognizable artist amongst my peers and others I have often followed and tried to emulate. My creative life began looking at others works so very long ago and a dream born within myself to express the vastness of my own experience through this time. I was never quite sure of the path or where this year would lead. I always knew a website was essential and now we have given birth to something wondrous that I can grow into in the upcoming years. The remarkable has availed itself and I now have a platform to communicate with the world and best of all other artist, who have been thought this process or are about the discover within themselves how remarkable their gifts can become if they face their own personal demons and merely show up to that creative table. My advice USE EVERYTHING YOU KNOW and look within yourself for the answers. The expression of art is the culmination of what we have felt and experienced, all of it. Last week I fretted because the year had become a fiscal disaster, to devote so much time, resources and money on one thing without any kind of return but this week I see I have grown well beyond a reward that money cannot buy, respect!

I wanted to open the last week or so to others who have shared this exploration with me. Are there any questions you needed answered, areas that have not be covered, or things you might want to know? Things you think I am missed? Please send me a note and they can become topics. For it is the viewer who becomes the final collaborator in the creation of any artistic endeavor!