I recently was back in San Francisco. I had booked a trip back in March when the dates for the Joan Mitchell exhibition had been re-scheduled. I often struggle selecting one piece to focus on each week, especially after viewing so much great art between SFMOMA (Joan Mitchell), Legion of Honor (Wangechi Mutu), and the de Young Museum (Judy Chicago). I was able to visit each exhibit with great friends. Viewing art together, once again. I hit all my old haunts, re-visiting, and saying goodbye. It is time for me to move on from the 49 square miles of heaven. This made it even more difficult to select one piece of art - and of course I will write on Joan Mitchell and Wangechi Mutu, possibly Judy Chicago, again. I sometimes want to choose pieces I have command over, both the piece’s history and aesthetic. Other times, new pieces and unfamiliar artists grab me. What kept popping out of my digital photos this past week was not a sculpture or painting, or even that colorful for that matter, it was a book. A singular, absolutely beautiful, and simple book. I must write on what calls to me, right? It is a ritual, a prayer, an intention. The art may select me instead. I worked at the Legion of Honor for five years helping run public programming, which ranged from classical concerts in front of Rodin’s three muses, lectures featuring some of the greatest artists of history, and even a private performance of Tony Bennet. I know this museum, I know it’s galleries, the collection, and what to expect. The museum is approachable in scale. Though, there is always one gallery that stands out above the rest. Always. It never ceases to amaze me what this tiny little, dark gallery brings to my attention. It is called the Logan Gallery. Mr. Logan collected one of the most diverse and important private collection of modern artist illustrated books and gave them to the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco in 1998. I love his collection for many reasons, which first and foremost is that, I love books. But, I think more importantly, the collection has always shown me something I never knew existed. Artist books never get as famous as a painting. These collaborations between publishers and artists are specific, private, and typically small affairs. Many times, it is for the artists themselves and not for collectors or the public. This time in the Logan Gallery, Iliazd: Publishing as an Art Form was on exhibit and it gave me something that is always a gift, another new unknown artist uncovered (for me), Ilia Zdanevich, (known as Iliazd). No wonder I had never hear of him, this is the first US museum exhibition devoted to his work in more than thirty years.

Ilizad was in a league of his own. Though, I had never heard of him, the artists he collaborated are some of the most famous names in the 20th century canon. The artists included Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Alberto Giacometti, Max Ernst, and Joan Miró. His innovative typographic and design work were pioneering. I was drawn to a specific piece with his collaboration with Max Ernst (which I primarily only know through his third wife, artist Dorthea Tanning). The book captured me like a web. The typeface was contemporary. I felt like it could have been created by a graphic designer in 2021, but nonetheless, Ilizad saw the potential for white space and serif typefaces well before digital technology start-ups. It is not always so important for me to know everything about the artist, or the context, but how does the object land in the context of today? As a designer, I am constantly looking back into history for innovative artists. Ilizad was a great discovery for me. Not only was he a master of the book, but it seems to me that he was a master of collaboration. He was able to see the artist’s vision and make it his own through the form. Not an easy feat whatsoever and less common throughout history. We are drawn to the idea of the singular artistic vision, in painting, sculpture, or architecture. We want desperately to believe that ideas stem from individual’s brains, like we are all stuck in some sort of solitary confinement. This is a myth we tell ourselves. Artists sometimes have a singular vision, egos that outweigh, and crush other visions. We need that sometimes, that command of the artist vision and truth. We also need cooperation and empathy. I see these values in the two pages of this book, the lightness and space of the text on the left page with a counterweight of Ernst's mathematical-like scribble. Almost like a mix of hieroglyphics and algorithms. The heaviness of languages held on paper as thin as feathers.

"An illustrated book by Iliazd is a book by Iliazd, and not a book by Picasso, Miró, or Max Ernst. . . . a standalone work of art just like a painting, a sculpture, a monument, a film. And Iliazd is its true and sole creator."

Louis Barnier, director of the Imprimerie Union, Paris, 1974

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Who is invited to your Dinner Party? The guests have changed for me throughout the years. Right now, I think I might invite the fictional character Brian from Company, or the mystical Teresa of Avila, definitely Sacagawea of the Corps of Discovery, and Queen’s frontman, Freddie Mercury. And the one and only, Judy Garland (maybe Liza, too). Georgia O’Keefe and her many lovers (her flowers from Lake George might adorn the table). Essayist Susan Sontag and Rachel Carson of Silent Spring. Maybe fashion designers, Cristobal Balenciaga and Hubert Givenchy. I think I would add activist Larry Kramer, too, but he might hog the conversation (in an annoyingly good way). It is a big dinner party. I would not want anything less. Judy Chicago spent quite a bit of time inviting her guests to dinner - all women. Her monumental piece, The Dinner Party lives at the Brooklyn Museum. Chicago is currently the focus of a retrospective at the de Young Museum in San Francisco. Though, The Dinner Party is not included, I am revisiting it as I prepare to view the new exhibit. 

I have visited The Dinner Party multiple times. The first time I was on an art pilgrimage to see my first Keith Haring exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum in 2013. I was already emotionally raw from seeing Keith’s pieces for the first time (little did I know I would be involved in an exhibit of Haring’s work shortly thereafter, a dream come true). It was my first time in New York feeling the energy, the diversity, and the collisions, that of, a mega city. It is right that these women gather here in the corner of Prospect Park in the heart of Brooklyn. I have usually been alone in the gallery that holds the installation and reading about the historical women Chicago highlights and honors in each table setting. In June 2021, I visited it with my dear friend Beth. She was pregnant and we rushed to the museum in between business meetings. I had to show her this piece. I had talked about it for years. Beth would be at my dinner, too. Women scientists are a must have at any dinner party. 

When I visit museum with friends, a switch usually turns on and I want them to feel the piece or understand why I connect to the pieces or artist emotionally. I am constantly trying to lower the barrier of entry into an understanding of the artist intent. I know I see things a bit differently. Artist put barriers up on purpose, self-preservation, or creating space in between, or otherwise. Judy makes space for these powerful women to sit together, separately. Each woman has their own setting, their own name stitched lovingly into the table runner. Craft is present. These are royal table settings. The reverence is apparent as you walk in with the dramatic lighting and ceramic center reflecting the names of the women placed in gold. As they should be. Sculptural, historical, lyrical, and mystical. I have never tired of The Dinner Party. I always learn about new women in history that are overlooked, misremembered, or other subversive talent. The making of the actual piece is a bit fraught as there are differing recollections of “collaboration,” services rendered and not paid for, and other narratives of the craftswomen who dedicated their talents to the completion of the work. Nonetheless, the piece stands as a testament to revisiting history, re-crafting a new narrative, and centering women who have pushed our society forward.  

From the Brooklyn Museum, “The Dinner Party, an important icon of 1970s feminist art and a milestone in twentieth-century art, is presented as the centerpiece around which the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art is organized. The Dinner Party comprises a massive ceremonial banquet, arranged on a triangular table with a total of thirty-nine place settings, each commemorating an important woman from history. The settings consist of embroidered runners, gold chalices and utensils, and china-painted porcelain plates with raised central motifs that are based on vulvar and butterfly forms and rendered in styles appropriate to the individual women being honored. The names of another 999 women are inscribed in gold on the white tile floor below the triangular table. This permanent installation is enhanced by rotating Herstory Gallery exhibitions relating to the 1,038 women honored at the table.”

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In my recent drives of the Midwest through Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and Arkansas, I have been inspired by the landscape. These drives Americans will most likely never do because it is not Interstate driving from Point A to Point B. These roads are not the typical “road trip” roads. The roads are tighter, two-lane, curvy, and a bit rough. The roads carve their way through the rolling farmland of the Midwest with barns and homes set far apart from each other. There is space here. My childhood memories have scattered photographs of staring out the window wondering what life was like on a farm. Though my mother’s family was raised in southern Missouri, my suburban life was quite a contrast from the agrarian lifestyle. My childhood memories are full of tension between city dreams, or a farm in the backyard, and my queer identity pulling down on all those visions. It was always hard to reconcile as a child and still challenging as an adult. Far away from these rolling hills and space is another dreamland of mine, Broadway, a theatrical corridor like no other, known as The Great White Way (electrical signage dazzled visitors and the street soon became known throughout the world). Both spaces are vital parts of my American identity, as we continue to piece together our identities as what it means to be American, who we are collectively, and who do we want to be in the future. I recently was asked by a friend, “What musical movie would you start with if the person has never seen a musical?” What a question! I sped through my knowledge of what I films were available on streaming services, classics (West Side Story), Oscar winners (Chicago), and more eccentric choices (Sweeney Todd). All are great introductions to the American art form of musical theater (alas nothing like the stage, though). I ultimately landed on Rogers and Hammerstein’s first hit, Oklahoma! Not only is it great music, but the story is not what it seems. I re-visited the film version recently and the underlying tension of toxic masculinity in the character of Jud Fry is worth a re-watch alone.

This film recommendation brought me to the original set design of Oklahoma! in 1943 at the St. James Theatre. There was much doubt that this musical about the middle of America would be a remote success - still much the attitude held today I am sure. Despite the doubt, the reviews raved and the original Broadway production of Oklahoma! went on to play a staggering 2,212 performances, running almost five years, holding the record for the longest-running Broadway musical for 15 years. In its first year, Oklahoma! received a special Pulitzer Prize, and the original production launched an international tour that stopped in 361 cities around the world for nearly ten years. It was also the first time there was a recording of the original Broadway cast giving birth to the “Broadway cast recording.” Oklahoma! was a hit. There was a revival in 2019 that was also lauded. My own recommendation made me wondered what that original scenic design looked like? I have seen two productions of the stage musical but don’t really remember anything striking other than the expansive stage for the dream scene. I was unsure how I was going to view a set for a live production in 1943, but there are some archives. In my research, I came across some of the original set designed by Lemuel Ayers and the set design is striking. Born in New York City, Ayers earned a degree in drama from the University of Iowa and a degree in architecture from Princeton University. Oklahoma! was within his first ten sets he had designed for Broadway. In the back upper left, a farm house is set back with the windmill and the golden landscape of wheat/corn contrasting with the hopeful blue sky. Subtle hints at landscape changes of geological formations reminiscent of Kansas’ Badlands, representative of the dry terrain where softer sedimentary rocks and clay-rich soils have been extensively eroded, and as the song goes, “There's a bright golden haze on the meadow…” Simple, elegant, and expansive. In his short career, Ayers designed sets for a total of 30 Broadway plays and musicals during his career, dying of cancer at the age of 40.

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Over this past weekend, I finally made the sojourn to the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas. The Ozarks are full of river bluffs, rolling hills, and sprawling forests of green. It is a beautiful landscape that I have grown up with in Central and southern Missouri. As you go further south, the hills get steeper the bluffs wider. Set among a beautiful forest, Crystal Bridges was founded by Alice Walton of the Wal-Mart fortune. The museum is currently celebrating its 10th year and I glad I was able to view the collection over the course of a full day. I was welcomed into the museum by a greeter, very much like a Wal Mart, which signaled to me that this was not like other art museums. They do things differently in Arkansas. I gladly wandered right into the galleries (for free, underwritten by Ms. Walton). I was glad to have finally checked this American collection off my list of “must-sees” as it has an unmatched depth and breadth in United States art museums. For any Americanist, I recommend the sojourn. The museum is currently celebrating their decade anniversary through a special exhibition highlighting commissions by contemporary artists that include Dyani White Hawk (Sičáŋǧu Lakota), Maxfield Parrish, and Mark Dion. I was thrilled to notice Dion’s inclusion, as I am familiar with his work through prior installations at Stanford and throughout the US. He created a single experience through four galleries based on the four elements of our planet.

AirAny John James Audubon print catches my attention right away in any gallery. I feel as if the prints are magnets and I am the direct opposite of my embodied pole. The Birds of America is one of the greatest artistic achievements I think across generations. Audubon’s dedication to accuracy, recording, and placing the bird in its natural environment is astounding. Dion plays with time and the fantasy of flight through fun wallpaper, representing dinosaurs, bats, and a fantastical dragon-like creature. The Audubon print is paired with a Blue Heron from the University of Arkansas’ Natural History collection. Dion creates a pleasurable corner for the eye. It felt as if I was nestled in my own imaginarium playing with the creepiness of taxidermy and the joy of Audubon’s illustrations, together.

EarthThe objects in the Earth room grounded me. I struggle with my Midwestern identity because of a certain grief being queer in this land. I never quite fit, but here, in this room, Dion places objects that resonate with me even if I never had a direct connection before. Strange, other-worldly objects like the skeleton of the earliest horse in Arkansas made a conversation with the horse painted by known homophobe Thomas Hart Benton (Ploughing It Under in the upper left). I delighted in Benton’s horse making its way into Marsden Hartley’s queer landscape of fall foliage amid the rolling mountains of New Hampshire in Mountain 22. I felt Dion has captured the beauty and oddities of the Midwestern time, culture, and land. It is not an easy task, and few people have taken any care or effort to discover. There is beauty here, in the work. A certain and specific labor with the land that is glorified and under appreciated at the same time. The tension is partnered with objects that are millions of years old when humans did not till the soil. Distant family members, if you will.

WaterMoving into the water room, I was taken aback as my eyes adjusted to the black light appearing to cast the entire room in blue. We were underwater. It was apt considering I had just been underwater in Beaver Lake that morning with the algae covered lake floor and blue gills tapping on my mask while I completed my Open Water SCUBA certification. I was surprised to find a hand-colored engraving and mezzotint of George Caleb Bingham’s 1847 The Jolly Flatboat Men in the corner against blue wallpaper featuring jelly fish. Freshwater and salt water collide. Yes, the print is of men on the Missouri River, a body of water itself, only represented as a simple horizon line. The water is an afterthought in the painting dominated by its dancing characters and dominant boat structure. Yet, I do think Dion is playing with a deeper history here. In 1847, the American Art-Union, which had purchased The Jolly Flat boatmen directly from the artist, produced this large mezzotint of it that was distributed to its members (approximately 10,000) throughout the country and beyond its borders, even across the Gulf into the Caribbean, immediately making it one of the best-known works of art of its era. Waters can destroy, but can also connect us.

FireIn terms of destruction and elements at play, fire is at work in California as water is at work in the South. The elements seem to be more active than ever. As you enter the last room of Dion’s installation, you have to bend your body down, as you enter the mind shaft for Fire. It reminded me of my childhood mythical story of my brother riding a roller coaster called Fire in the hole at the nearby Silver Dollar City in Branson, MO.  It also reminded me of human’s inherent desire to dig, pillage, and bend the elements to our will. I have been on many mine tours that have glorified this process and our society’s need for more energy. My eyes gravitated to a nice print by an unknown artists of muscular iron workers peering into the fiery depths of labor, capitalism, and industrialization.

I was mesmerized being with objects with no labels and only the stories they told to each other. Dion’s installations are a puzzle of the imagination for your mind to put together in whatever way you can muster. Sometimes frustrating, sometimes immensely pleasurable. Holding so much art history inside my mind, I could not help but try to create a narrative that made sense. I let go of that need quickly by the time I saw Hartley and Benton together, warring opposites, together. Can the stories and objects of art history heal our divides? Maybe. We first, have to be attracted to look and ask the questions of who and where and why. And I felt as if the artist was speaking to me directly through an elemental narrative that grounded me in this place. Surprisingly, this installation made me feel an emotion I had not felt in long time, I felt home.

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What does a discovery in art history mean in your every day life? Not much. I am unsure of the real impact. Most likely it is an unmeasurable and unquantifiable paradigm shift in your brain. I am not here to convince you that art history matters or maybe I am? I am still unsure why I keep writing these reflections and sharing them publicly. But, I know something about pausing and focusing on one piece of art feels important to me. It is becoming a vital ritual (and maybe you reading), like prayer for some or exercise for others. On my most recent trip to The Met in June, I told my friend to stop and look at Vermeer’s Young Woman with a Water Pitcher (ca. 1662) as part of the exhibition, “In Praise of Painting: Dutch Masterpieces at The Met.” He shrugged and asked what the big deal was about the painting. It is a simple picture, an accurate painting of a young woman executing a daily task. We were standing in front of one of 36 oil paintings by Vermeer which have survived. And all I could muster was, “it’s a Vermeer!” in my typical art museum enthusiasm. It is important because I was told it was important. I have been alone with The Girl with a Pearl Earring and recognize the power of a masterpiece. There is something special about standing in front of an object that is famous for simply existing. Yet, there is a power in the painting on the canvas itself. I continued to wax philosophical to my friend about the wildly radical approach Vermeer used at painting a young women inside, the interior of the home, and how these are private moments. I think about Vermeer’s own conversion to Catholicism and how it played a defining role in his family life, provided subject matter early in his career, and secured him at least one large-scale religious painting commission. Even in his secular works, he managed to incorporate his faith by imbuing his genre paintings with a solemn, contemplative mood. Yet, I can’t help but think about all the moments we now share about our daily life via social media. I think about all the material about our personal lives that is out there for the public’s consumption. Vermeer painted these private moments in the 17the century and it was radical. 

There has been a recent discovery that changes how we see the painter, and his possible motives as an artist in the above painting. Until recently for over 300 years, Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window was thought to be a young woman was reading a letter from the outside. It was a reserved and private moment. Who is the letter from? A suitor? A lover? A family member? In the primary Calvinist society of the Netherlands, the narrative of this painting has mostly been a reflection of piety and the quiet interior.

Until now. Cupid has reveled himself. Historians and conservators have know cupid has been lurking in the shadows since 1979. The conservators had determined the paint did not match the same time period as Vermeer and could not have been the artist himself that painted over as referenced in The Art Newspaper article. What does this all mean exactly? I think what strikes me is the timeline for our understanding of the image. For over 250 years, we revered this image for its general piety. And then over the course of a generation, the meaning of the picture has changed. Vermeer is painting a tender reading of a love letter, though scandalous by 17th century Dutch standards. Cupid (Cupid is the son of Venus and the god of Love; in Latin he is called Amor, and in Greek, Eros) implies an illicit romance of this young woman. And if you look right beneath the young woman, a bowl of fruit is over flowing. Possibly foreshadowing events to come? Some say it is a serious moral warning, as Vermeer used Cupid quite often in his pictures. This picture is different now. Vermeer catapulted himself into relevance with the help of infrared technology. Who are the artists treating those we shun from society with such intention, care, and time as Vermeer has done with his subject here? Do we have artists teaching us morality? Is art as activism the same or a watered down version? Or maybe the artist that painted over Cupid was adjusting the painting for a more secular society. The society couldn’t take it, so the painter decided to ‘cancel’ Vermeer? Who needs or wants moral warnings anymore? Was this Church propaganda? Will art historical writing ever reach the relevance of Vermeer’s paintings? Probably not. Ultimately, I think art history provides us with many more mysteries, more questions, than answers. But, what would we do without mystery?

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Hands down, my favorite book is Peter Benchley’s Jaws. I read it before I saw Stephen Spielberg’s 1975 film. The book is fast-paced, mysterious, and complex. Loving the ocean growing up, it was the first story that immersed me in an ocean world through storytelling (other than Jonah and the whale). I have yet to tackle Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. I love Jaws because it introduced me to science fiction with Benchley’s mysterious creature of the deep. The story is grounded in the characters grappling with the age-old literary tradition of human vs nature. I love all the characters especially the Captain of the Orca, Captain Quint who won my heart as a teenage boy. His surliness, confidence, and his home/office by the sea, described as an artist studio of the ocean, was locked into my memory. 

There is a direct contrast from the original first edition book cover to the movie poster. Though thought of as low art, I love poster design. There are various posters series that have I have come to love including the National Park Series, World War One bonds, and other various WPA campaigns. Jaws’ poster design is iconic: a bold, witty typeface, overall coloring, and shark accuracy. Roger spent time at a natural history museum looking at preserved shark carcasses to bring the Great White to life.

Jaws changed the movie industry forever pioneering the summer blockbuster. I think the poster had a lot to do with it. First, I love the red typeface with the letter J doubling as a hook. Red is a bold choice always because it is such a direct color telling us to stop and be aware of what lies ahead of us (or below). Here, the coloring is a foreshadowing tool. All elements in poster design must serve in communicating key themes to the audience. The poster design is ultimately a tool for communication. The thin line between commercialization and fine art often get blurred. The naked woman (the first victim in the book and film) is naked, vulnerable, and in open water. Here, the shark is accurate, dominate, and vertical. I love the dominance of our main character. The enemy and the victim are shown together - again, human vs. nature. The shark, our villain, doesn't even appear on screen until one hour and 21 minutes into the two-hour movie. Spielberg had us falling over our seats in anticipation, hook, line and sinker. I recently watched Jaws for the umpteenth time and something about it makes it so re-watchable. It is a great story. The characters pull us in and make us care like any good stories. Ultimately, this film was bad for sharks and bad for our collective understanding of the ocean. Yet, the book does a much better job of placing our limited humanity in relationship to the shark - as the Scientist says to the Sheriff: “Look, Chief, you can't go off half-cocked looking for vengeance against a fish. That shark isn't evil. It's not a murderer. It's just obeying its own instincts. Trying to get retribution against a fish is crazy.” (Peter Benchley, Jaws)

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On August 11, 1956, Jackson Pollock died in a car accident. Lee Krasner (his wife and lesser known artist) moved into his barn. Still to this day, she has not been correctly placed in the art history canon as a great painter of abstraction. Krasner used this period of pain and grief to produce her Umber series. Umber, making reference to a color, being a natural pigment resembling but darker than ocher, normally dark yellowish-brown in color (raw umber) or dark brown when roasted (burnt umber). Finally, Krasner out of the shadow of her alcoholic husband, she produced some of her most compelling work. 

I frequently turn to artists in grief or illness. I notice markable changes in their technique, their choice of materials, and subject. The contrast of color selection and even style changes are endlessly fascinating. Krasner noted her own personal storytelling aspects of the paintings in 1973 saying, “My painting is so biographical, if anyone can take the trouble to read it.” 

What might it mean to read a painting? When I look at a painting, I take a cue from my lifeguard training when we would have to scan the pool constantly, back and forth, back and forth, for hours on end in the summertime. I look at paintings and scan them, back and forth, back and forth. I sit with them like I sat as a lifeguard. I look for things that might be different as a lifeguard might look for someone in distress. How might we look for the difference in paintings? Is the artist consistent? How do they achieve such consistency? Especially in abstraction, humans struggle to comprehend any kind of cohesion. Here, Krasner uses a consistent palette, and strikes a balance of brushwork in the panoramic canvas. Back and forth, back and forth, as the tides go.

Moontide, from 1961, struck me as unique among the series for the canvas shape, a panoramic form. From a 2017 article featuring Moontide, the author notices “At once unruly and lyrical, Moontide, 1961, is animated by Krasner’s individual and newly powerful backhand gesture, advancing in a rhythmic motion from right to left in vast, curvilinear sweeps that result in interlaced bold forms of black, umber and white.”

Much like grief, it ebbs and flows like Moontide. I recently have been doing my advanced scuba certification and learning more about the movement of water on our planet. We forget we are moving. Our planet is very much alive and in constant motion through space, in the oceans, our rivers, our lakes, and our fires. We forget how much is out of our control and maybe more aware of that sentiment more than ever with variants of COVID19 still moving through time and space and our bodies. Some might not want to face the movement. We may want to choose stillness and silence. Or aloneness. One of the skills in diving is equalizing as you descend deeper in motion, you must equalize before you sense pain. It brings me much more peace to recognize the constant movement and find equalization in Krasner’s painting. I think that is what attracts me to great abstract painters like Krasner, Joan Mitchell, Helen Frankenthaler or Jay DeFeo. They are great equalizers through pain, struggle, and adversity. Their work stands alone, constantly moving, offering up peace. 

In Summer and Fall 2019, Lee Krasner: Living Color was featured in London and Frankfurt.

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I was recently introduced to the work of Go Mishima. He focused on idealized versions of Japanese men in contemporary time. How do we represent ourselves? I gravitate towards male bodies. I am queer and am attracted to the male body, though representations of the nude male body are seen as taboo. I am attracted to this image for a lot of reasons but chose it mainly because I think Asian men generally face stereotypes in American culture that stem from the deep rooted racism of our country. Do we still consider David the perfect form? What I love about Go’s work is that he elevates the Japanese man into position of focus and vulnerability.

Male representations, when naked, are generally placed in the “erotic illustration” category creating a siloed expectation. When it is the female body, they are elevated into great masterpieces. The artist and the female muse is a typical trope found in art history. In an era of more nuanced narratives around the human body, the siloing is unhelpful to our deeper understanding of what it means to be human. I understand categories are the way we learn. But, we need new language, new representations, and allow for new ways of learning. 

Getting into Go’s work makes me think Hannah Gadsby’s Douglas writes a brilliant joke about artists and how they make their decisions. She focuses on Peter Paul Rubens, The Three Graces, ca. 1635, which hangs in the Museo del Prado in Madrid, Spain. The decision is the bit of silk that is layered through the rear side of the grace in the center of the painting similar to Go’s specific red drape across the male’s genitals. Red makes us look, but there is nothing to see. Reuben’s decision to paint the silk sliding through her crease. “It’s a decision” exclaims Gadsby. The artist thought about how best to represent sensuality, eroticism, and yet being “respectful?” This was the ideal beauty of the day.  

In contrast, Go dedicates most of his career to a hyper-masculine version of the Japanese male. In this lithograph, he draws decorative carp called koi on the male’s biceps. Koi can be seen in gardens and parks of various countries. Interestingly, the koi were first bred in Japan in the 1820s, to become a delight for an eye. By the 20th century over 20 types of koi were established, varying in color combinations from gold to black. The pallete of this creature includes red, white, yellow, orange, blue, greenish and pearl.

Those colorful creatures can be seen practically in all public gardens and parks of China as well, with red and gold koi prevailing over the other types. In Go’s lithograph, two red koi dominate the male’s bicep signaling strength and sensuality. The male is also in a resting positioning, sitting, gazing into the unknown. Go draws his muse in a position of comfort and displays his culture, an adonis, and shows his command of graphic color.

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I had an Olympic dream. I started swimming when I was four years old, but didn’t start taking it seriously until I was twelve years old (which is quite late in swimming years), though my career stretched onto a Division 1 collegiate team an achievement in itself, my career ending in injury. To dream to be an Olympian is something you hold inside yourself day in and day out. And this is not something I have ever truly shared widely. I was never an out athlete until I moved to open water swimming and triathlon, as hobbies in my mid-20s. Even today, there are few openly gay male swimmers in collegiate swimming, let alone the National Team. In spite of my own identity confusion and desire to conform, the Olympic swimming dream was real for me and stayed with me during those formative years. The Olympic journey, contrary to NBC’s propaganda, can be quite a lonely experience. I was inspired by last night’s coverage of Simone Biles exit from team competition and Michael Phelps speaking candidly about his own personal struggles of mental health. “The Greatest” are also human, too. It was validating and inspiring. The discourse will only broaden around athletes choosing vulnerability instead of being stoic pillars of achievement. Instead they can be considered feats of strength and self-awareness. Nonetheless, the Olympic dream propels you to put your body through intense pain and push your body harder than you can even imagine. 

Often, we separate sport and culture language in the United States. It seems in most other countries, sport is part of their heritage and cultural pride, and their everyday language reflect this interconnectedness. My passion for art and sport one and the same. Over the last few weeks, I have thought about my first tattoo I got when I turned 18 on the inside lower left ankle. The tattoo is the 1996 Olympic swimming pictogram designed by Malcom Grear Designers, a Rhode Island-based design firm. This was the first time the pictogram took a more humanized look, as you can see from the nose and the flip of the hand coming out of the water. They were all black against an orange background when first released, but like most solid black design, they were versatile. The sport illustration/pictogram has a history going back to 1912 Stockholm Games, but truly took hold with the 1964 Tokyo Games, where the Japanese perfected them using them not only as monikers, but for way finding. And I could wax philosophical on the 1968 Mexico City game design as some of the greatest graphic design in history (see Mexico 68: Design and Dissent for reference). Yet, the designs hold weight well beyond their siloed role of communicating sport, they hold the weight of a host nation. At ten years old, I decided I would get it tattooed when I went to the Atlanta Olympic Games in 1996 and saw the pictogram blown up on a venue walkway en route to a handball game. It took me eight years to finally mark my body in a strategic place. Every time I took to the blocks and bent to down to clinch the block, the pictogram was there on the inside of my left ankle, as a reminder of the dream, the propulsion and speed needed to compete. 

I learned about the pictogram through a project my brother Paul began early in his teenage years. He followed the Olympic Games closely, collected USA Today editions and the Saint Louis Post-Dispatch daily during the games tracking each sport and every country. He created his own archive of what we witnessed through the television set. I would put his talent up against any scrapebook hobbists, as they seem to me, binders of gold. I remember the slim three ring binder with the ice blue logo of the 1988 Albertville Winter Olympics shaded in with color pencil. And the giant four-ring binder of the 1992 Barcelona Summer Games. This is where my appreciation for the weight of a pencil began. I remember trying out different types of graphite for shading and texture. I never quite was able to copy him as perfectly as desired, but I continued through all the way to my high school summer when I had friends on the 2004 Athens Olympic Team. Swimming is a small community. We are always one-degree of separation from a National Team member. And my closest claim to fame was that I swam against Michael Phelps in Memphis, TN months before he made his first Olympic Team at the age of 15 in 2000.

I am grateful to those early days of opening the newspaper, tracking the sports I had never heard of, let alone countries I could never place on the globe. My museological and art collection pursuits stem from watching my brother draw, gather, curate, and dedicate time to this Olympic ephemera archive. It was a collection of so many things I still love: archives, newspapers, paper, pencils, sport, and culture. And after the years, when I hear the trumpets of John William’s Olympic Fanfare blare through the TV, I summon the words of Pierre de Coubertin and remind myself that “The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not winning but taking part; the essential thing in life is not conquering but fighting well.” 

And every time, without fail, when those Olympic swimmers step up on the block, I am reminded of ten-year old Gregory dreaming big. Though my reality of becoming an Olympian gets slimmer and slimmer as my body ages, the potential for new dreams only widens. My Olympic spirit persists like my hands still cut through the water, as my arms bend and reach for the fresh water ahead, staying true to the black line beneath me. Even amid the seemingly insurmountable corporate greed, wasted resources, and division our world is facing. I am not striving for ignorance here. We need to adapt. Yet, I have that dream in me still in many ways. And like my tattoo, very much like my dream, I hope it never goes away.

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Why do I fall in love with queer artists of the past? I mean, I fall hard. I read obsessively on their lives. I find out when they woke up or how late they stayed up. Were they insomniacs? I wonder if they liked coffee or tea or water with a sprig of mint? When did they make art? What was their process like? Who did they love or who did they sleep with? Who were their friends and did they hang out in the park just like I do? 

History has a way of erasing the queer present. I know we just came out of the month of June where it seems the Pride flag has thrown up on the digital landscape. Corporate pride is a difficult pill of “acceptance” I am still not ready to swallow. Straight people telling me Happy Pride without knowing what Pride means is difficult. I should be grateful that they remembered, right? How could you forget if you opened your device and see that Zillow changed their logo to represent…what? I can find an inclusive house? No deal. The rainbow flag does not mean much without actions behind it. Our dominant straight society still often doesn’t greet us with an invitation. And it is not like we wear name tags for our queerness. The next generation already seems to be “beyond the label.” They are breaking barriers with their confidence and I am fully supportive of those discovering their personal sexuality as a more fluid experience of life. I am grateful for them. I did not have that experience and you can’t go back and re-do adolescence. That trauma is lodged in many queer bodies still. We are in a strange bridge period where histories are happening at different time across the world. I still live in a world if I openly flirted with a man, I am more likely to get punched in the face than an appreciative rejection. Not everywhere, but most places. And why run the risk? It isn’t just the normal hetero rejection, not my type, no thank you or nope. Tolerance is more the line for straight people in our current context. “We support you”, “we are your ally” until something makes them uncomfortable. How might we envision these futures of inclusion? It might not look that different, but it will feel at lot better than today, I know that much. 

I often find myself sifting through history to find my people, friends, and queer lovers of the past. The communities of the past give me hope for my future. Unrequited love? Maybe. Affirmation of my queerness and my personhood? Definitely. It is better to have loved, right? I think so. 

In this photograph by Ruth Orkin, she features three female powerhouses, of the stage (Julie Harris), word (Carson McCullers), and song (Ethel Waters). I first notice the pearls, then the cigarette in Julie’s left hand, then espresso cup? It was a late night cast party. The lonely cigarette, as if she has the confidence to hold two at a time. And a young Carson McCullers nestled in Ethel’s bosom. Maybe it was a moment not to be captured? Photographers seem to be there lurking and capture just at the perfect moment of intimacy and yet it does seem Carson’s eye is disapproving. Haven’t you had that feeling at a party when just don’t feel like having your picture taken? Throughout Carson’s life, though married to the same man twice, her queerness was shunned and not spoken of most of. Her queer journey is masterfully observed through a lovely new book “My Autobiography of Carson McCullers” by Jenn Shapland. I highly recommend it. They are wonderful sentences that are invitations to wonder about those unrequited loves in your own past. And ponder the great mysteries we hold as we go through life.

This photograph made me think of a quote from the book I hold dear to my journey now. “What is the precise evidence for love? Documentation of sexual encounters? Examples of daily intimacies? Easier to tell and corroborate are stories of pain, dramatic events, betrayals. Love meanwhile lives in the mundane, the moment-to-moment exchanges, and can so easily become invisible after the people who shared it are no longer alive. But, of course, it leaves traces.” ― Jenn Shapland

I am grateful to Ruth for leaving this trace of Carson and her friends, her collaborators, sitting on a luxurious couch after a beautiful night of giving art to the world. And how lucky are we to get this trace, in a photograph. * Note: I incorrectly identified Carson in the photograph previously. I have updated the text and audio to reflect the change. I like Carson being more sensitively next to Ethel and possibly more disapproving of the image.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gregorymeander.substack.com