Made a huge leap with the website yesterday and last night. We have finally been able to connect it to RSS to create feeds and social links. We have also linked to Google Analytics so we can see how people are using the site. These were the last major missing pieces to this labyrinth of a project. Now I can begin to focus my energy more on the content and less on the structure, and I can openly release the site and begin promoting it.
I am still missing the splash page and can’t seem to figure out how to add it with this Joomla 1.7 system. Each day we get closer. The blog section is now completed with links to feed. If you are currently using the old RSS feeds, please convert them over to the new site as I would like to close down the other blog. The new site has a very good search engine that enables one to find almost any post instantly. Danny has been working diligently on breaking all the past blogs into topics that can now be accessed from the list on the left hand side of the panel. We will begin to focus more of our energy on creating a monthly gallery of the past blog images so they may be readily browsed. Then I will create a master list of titles that can also be indexed and will become searchable. It’s amazing to think I have created so much text in such a relatively short period of time! It suddenly has become a massive body of work for someone who is not a ‘writer’ to have created bit by bit. I wish I had created this website first – it was my intent to create it much sooner – but I just couldn’t figure it out. Now it has taken ten weeks to get this whole thing up and running as it is. My total cost on the project so far has been $135.00 for the entire site. But the learning curve has taken a lot of time and effort and trial and error to understand its dynamics and functionality. Although very technical, it has also been extremely creative to figure out. Once I begin to add the content to the site I will begin to market myself as an artist, collaborate with other like-minded artists, and begin recruiting new models to become subjects for my various studies. So far, being in Montana, I have had great difficulty gaining the credibility to be taken seriously by potential subjects. “You want me to what?????” is the common response. There always seems to have been a sense of perversity surrounding the idea of men exposing themselves nude, or partially nude, that has been the source of greatest resistance. It is the process of establishing myself with quality tangible images that I believe will make me more accessible. After all, it is about creating the images, and my connection to the subjects, that brought me to this sort of creation in the first place.
Wow a morning and afternoon completely free with nothing scheduled!!! It feels like months since I have had a window like this open. The only thing I have to get done today is my posting for the day on here. The ground outside is now frozen and winter in Montana becomes very slow for business that allows me time to focus on my creative endeavors. This is the time of year I get to shut myself into the studio and just focus. Shooting and the website will become the heart of what I do all winter. I love to make soups in the winter and fill the space with savory smells and invite others into the space to work on new concepts and ideas. I haven’t even had a chance to think about where I want to go next. I know the website will become a major focus as we begin to hone and refine it. I have begun to order some new books on male nude art, with a focus on painting. I have now proven myself as a photographer and now need to focus on images that get more to the heart of who I am. Topics I am most interested in are Greek and Roman mythology and I see how powerful its influence has been on so many other artists. What is it about these images that are so deeply connect to us? Is it the classic beauty or the actual myth that tugs at our heart that we want to identify with? I am particularly drawn to the theme of Orpheus, the idealism of intoxicating music that lulls us and being so captivated by another that he is willing to risk going to hell in order to retrieve it. It has been in my head for years and how we tell this story is not entirely clear yet, but is worthy of exploration. I am quite surprised that this is a story that has not been reworked for cinema. The theme is universal and captivating. It seems we all live in an era of loss, a time where we all search for desire and to be connected to something we want to love. We forget how beautiful and poetic life becomes as we begin to build barriers to encase and surround ourselves. I know I have. It seems life becomes more of a struggle just to maintain a normal existence. The theme of loss of a part of oneself and what we need to do the recover it fascinates me and basically has become the primary focus of this year. As an aging man, I want and need to revisit what was once vital to my youth. But is seems the darkness of life surrounds and often shrouds us locking us into a protective barrier that we often cannot overcome and so we become stuck in a place we may not necessarily be comfortable or even happy. Though I have lived a creative life most of my adult life has remained hidden behind this curtain. Now that I have reached this place of comfort and security within my own self I begin to ponder, why did it take me so long to get here? What was I really so afraid of for so long that held me back? My life has certainly not been easy, but then I know neither has anyone else. I am beginning to think our plight is to struggle with finding meaningful existence, yet I remember a time when I was so idealistic and my dreams wider then the ocean. Now I have crossed those oceans and the idealistic dreams are back. But it feels there is a huge hole or gap in the middle of my life filled with loss fueled by uncertainly and loss. I think this erodes at the core of our self-expression and breeds doubt. I think it is the mythology of hero that surpass the insurmountable odds that become so iconic and perhaps this is what mysteriously draws us to emulate them. It’s defiantly worth of the exploration.
I recently bought a book called “Porn: from Andy Warhol to X-Tube” edited by Kevin Clarke which is a visual guide following the history of gay porn both in publication and multi-media formats and it’s evolution. It’s actually quite a wonderful book that is put together quite nicely with lots of images of porn stars, cover art, advertising, quotes, and fascinating well written articles by people in the business. It begins with an opening quote by IC Adams from the Gay Porn Times “Porn is an interesting reflection of what goes on in our culture”. The book is then divided into four sections “Porn as Pop Art”, “The Golden Age of Promiscuity”, “Boom Years: Porn as Safe Sex”, and finally ending with “Grab Your Dick and Double Click”. Reading and reviewing this history I see how sexual and sensual pornography was at one time. I think it’s what drew me to do the work I am currently doing from the beginning. It was about defying normal and celebration of our freedom as a culture. This book reminds me of all the things I found sensual in my youth and how the leaders of porn industry really seem to have a soul at one point. I have only read the first half of the book when it was in its golden age, where any and everything seemed possible. It was more of a mind set and truly was a reflection of our humanity and growth as a culture. It just seems recently in the past decade or so, I am thinking possibly with the advent of video and over saturation of product and its evolution as a cash cow has lead to its fall. It seems to me this is the point I remember it becoming so homogenized, where suddenly everyone was looking the same, doing the same, becoming the same. It became a cookie cutter formula that was bankable. This is the point where I seem to have lost interest and it failed to arouse any kind of reaction within me. What made the early porn so fascinating was that it was literally a cinema verite in which the subjects where actually engaging in the actual act of sex, where as now the emphasis has been put on them as performers who are acting, and showing us what they think we want to see, which doesn’t engage us at all. I mean the act of sex is about the connection, bonding and intimate sharing of one’s self physically with another person. We learn from the art we are exposed to and if all we see or experience become superficial, performing instead of engaging, the imitation of life from that art begins to lack its genuine connection to the actual humans with which we are engaging. It is this lack of connection from which my own personal quest for art grows. I still love the idealism of old fashioned romance, of gazing in to my partner’s eyes and seeing his desire for being with me. To watch a man undress, to reveal himself, the see their vulnerability exposed, trusting someone with your intimacy, and that intimacy becoming a sacred gift. The emerging and mingling from and within the darkness where desire and intimacy bind us.
The Naked Man Project website has been up for a week now and though you may not see changes happening to it, I assure you it is continually still under construction. We are still trying to learn the programs and how it all functions together from the back end and there are still lots of detail stuff going on within that inner structure. Reminder this is a works in progress website so if you are on and you begin to see things shifting around or moving as we are working on various components of the site. It’s a true content management system so everything is always live and you work and change things in real time, which is really quite a fascinating way to work on the web, because you instantly see the impact it has on the site. And yes we are still making lots of mistakes. At this point I am systematically working my way through all the controls, turning new modules on and working with them, seeing if it something we can use, then adapting it or deleting it. There are about a hundred of these modules that can be worked through so you may see things appear and disappear as you are browsing. I really encourage people to sign on and become a member, there is no charge and it does take you to a deeper level so you can see the works as they were intended to be. You actually only need an email address to register and can be as anonymous as you want. I also encourage people to now post comments on the new blog since the old one doesn’t transfer those comments made to the new one and this will become the permanent record of the project. There are so many amazing people with great insight I really want to preserve. We have many galleries built, plus many artists outside the project are beginning to work on galleries to add to the featured section and several new articles written but wanted to get some of the understructure working before I added too much. Any feedback or recommendations are greatly appreciated. I do have a couple of big jobs that I need to finish up this week so a lot of my energy will be focused there. Thank you for making this website such a success already and thanks for helping it to grow.
I am writing this morning from a remote cabin at 57,000 on top of a mountain in Northern Idaho. Glenn had been planning this weekend for months and I said once I got the website up I would go. We took the weekend off and come over to visit our friends Forrest and Beth and their black lab Sprocket in a small mining town called Mullan, just over the mountains and the Montana-Idaho border. We then proceeded to a cabin in the mountains miles above Wallace. Their place is very rustic and I was not sure that we would even make it to the destination. The higher we went the deeper the snow got until we reached the cabin and the snow level was about a foot deep. The cabin, more a pole lodge, so far is only covered by exterior sheeting and was very raw within. It has a little wood stove in the center of the room that we instantly fired up and within a half hour could no longer see our breaths. I put a pot on the stove and made a hearty chicken stew with carrots, potatoes, and mushrooms flavored with tarragon, a pinch of basil, and rosemary. It turned out fantastic for my first time of cooking an old fashioned wood stove.
We ate, drank, and chatted and watched the world around us envelop into a secluded darkness and the one gas lantern they had seem to fail us. Then we all climbed to a loft to sleep. There was a draft of snow and ice particles blowing through the cracks, which Forrest tired to seal before we went to bed. I drifted in and out of consciousness as Forrest got up throughout the night to feed the fire. At one point that fire had gone out and I hunkered deeper into my bed, snuggling closer to Glenn for warmth as a draft that felt good when I first went to bed now chilled the core of my body. In the wilderness the night seems eternal as I kept waking up looking for some signs of daylight. The morning came early gradually illuminating the outline of the open rafters barley above my head.
I was the first one up because I wanted to watch how the light began to fill the valleys far below us. As rustic as it all seemed it really awoke a side of myself I have completely forgotten. It reminded me of my youth and growing up on the ranch. It feels like the ongoing theme of this week has been a return to simplicity and a greater connection to my natural heritage. Although the website is a culmination of my existence, it is my connection to the future as I move into the future. Today I am stripped on all the essentials of a modern life, no running water, no electricity, dependent on the life my computer laptop battery, now running in the red. Here we are against our own elements. There is something poetic about the sound of the snow smattering against the side of the building, of not working from the moment I rise to well after midnight each night. We must exist only within the expanse of the natural day.
