Just finished doing my taxes and my head is spinning. Why does this always seem to be so difficult? No mater how much I prepare and organize and think I am on top of it all it still feels like a difficult ordeal. So why does it feel like we have just been run over by a train when we are done? I can’t really seem to gage the tax thing from year to year. Working part-time for a company that provides all the benefits while also working for myself self seems to create so much penalty. While working for yourself seems to give you satisfaction but also creates a constant struggle for your stability, especially in these economic times. Yet working for someone else gives you stability but limits your flexibility. There is always a compromise. The only stable jobs currently seem to be working for the government. It feels like I am always on the verge of making too much yet not enough. There never seems to be a clear balance. The more I make the more of it is consumed by others. Our services here in Montana, have always been on the low end. I heard a photographer promoting a photo session on the radio the other day for a $50 session fee, how can you compete?

Fiscally this year so far feels like I have fallen into a deep hole. The work just doesn’t seem to be out there and so I am focusing on my own creative endeavors. It feels like this year I am finally doing what feels right to me. It may kill me in the end, only time will tell. All I know is the more I seem to work on other people things, the less I have to give toward myself. I have had years where I have had great financial gain, been on top, promoted myself, grew my business, but when it come down to in the end of the year, the final analysis, revealed that most of that was lost because it went right back into what it cost to create it from the start. Profits I actually made from jobs I got from advertising and self-promotion in the end only seems to pay for what it cost to do the advertising and promotion. It just makes me that much busier. The real question is how do artists really sustain themselves. Do they actually make a living at it? Does it just become an intensified hobby or passion? So how does one begin to promote and sell their passion to make it sustainable? Is it something that can be sustainable? It is a time where everyone is struggling, pulling back and becoming protective of maintaining what they currently have. A time where cutbacks are impacting everyone, is it any wonder our economy is imploding! I even see and feel this effect at a big corporation like UPS. I am beginning to wonder if this will become an era from which we will actually recover?

I am beginning to believe this is the time to get back in touch with myself. Right now I am a very content person living his dream and following his heart. It’s gives me a freedom of expression of myself and my own free will and something about this makes me feel back in control again, empowers me. Where it takes me I am still not sure, but I am having a blast along the ride. I have always believed in karma and that hard work and being sincere will pay off in the end. It feels like few people actually follow what’s in their hearts and become disillusioned by their hopes. It seems very few only dare to follow a dream.

Spring feels like it is finally coming to Montana. This time I mean it. The light thought the studio window this morning is beautiful. I put on some old Billie Holliday ballads and slid the sofa over so I can sit in the sun and work this morning. I have been outside cleaning my property and am about half way through the process. The spring plants are beginning to poke through everywhere I clean. Things I planted last year are beginning to emerge. To connect to the outside and the earth is one of my greatest delights. It feels good to be able to get out in that warmth again. I feel like I am actually a very simple man. I have a greater aware of myself when I am somehow grounded to nature; growing up on a ranch is a big part of your life. Our ranch was fairly self-sustaining; we had large gardens and grew most everything we ate. We had a root cellar under the old granary where we stored root vegetables to last us year round. We grew and slaughtered our own livestock and most of my family were hunters. Our ranch was in the mountains, just about 30 minutes west of where I currently live. It was homesteaded by my great grandfather at the end of the 1800’s and still remains in the family. It lies at the mouth of the Fish Creek drainage, which contains the coldest mountain water imaginable all year round. The entire area around the ranch was just recently turned into a park and wild life habitat so it ensures that property will never be developed and the wilderness will remain in tact. I am actually quite excited by this because my brothers and me still retain the hillside and wilderness part of the property.

For some reason I always had such a dread of growing up in such an area; I always felt isolated and confined. It’s hard to dream beyond yourself when this is all you are exposed to or know. It seems the older I get the more I appreciate this connection to my heritage. I think in so many ways it has defined my nature and my character as a man. I am very peaceful at heart. Enjoy simpler things and am interminably patient.

My property in Missoula is an extension of my connection to nature as well. The back part of it is built on a hillside that I have been installing stonewalls to contain and give it a beautiful texture. There is an irrigation ditch that is turned on in the summer months that I have landscaped to look like a creek with stones that make the water trickle outside my bedroom window. The house is surrounded by large trees and actually feels quite isolated. I designed the house so that the focus of the windows and doors lead to this back yard I have begun developing with mossy cobblestone paths and a bridge. It’s all an extension of my photographic environment.

Many years ago I read Oscar Wilde’s The Picture Of Dorian Grey. I love the idea that people could sit for a painting and then wander into the back garden for tea. Oh the idealism of a young gay man. I love my connection to place. I have lived in major cities across the US and toured the nation for years, but have never quite found anything a remarkable as my home here in Montana.

I have a photo shoot this afternoon with a male couple and am going to try to utilize the natural light in the studio and focus on the idealism of young romance.

Today’s picture is from the series I was working on last week with Jeremy in the natural light in the studio.

I didn’t work on photography or images all weekend long. It’s the first time since this project began I have taken a break from any of it. I was able to watch a couple of films that were both excellent. It’s odd I ended up with two films from Argentina for the weekend; both of which have reawakened my long dormant passion for the cinema. Saturday I watched The Secret In Their Eyes but last night’s film was called Burnt Money. It came out in 2000 and is quite probably one of the most brilliant films I have seen in a very long time. I do not mark too many films with a 5 star, but this one I would. To me it was the epitome of the mysterious power of cinema at it’s best. This film worked on so many levels and layers that I was up for hours after I watched it; my mind abuzz processing what I had just seen. This rarely happens to me so when it does I savor the experience as much as possible. I will not tell you the plot because it’s something that has to reveal itself through the process of watching it, but it contains amazing struggle within its characters. I would not classify this film as gay, though two of the main characters are entwined emotionally, sensually, and sexually. These two characters are brilliantly realized by actors Leonardo Sbaraglia and Eduardo Noriega and are at a polar opposition to each other. They are caught in a struggle for an identity of the way we perceive ourselves. One is religiously motivated and his struggle to deal with his sexual identity becomes a moral issue almost to the point where he becomes incapacitated and manifests itself through his hearing voices in his head. The other is the embodiment of raw sexual/sensual self who is driven by love, desire, and carnal lust and is motivated by his passion for a man he so utterly loves that he will allow it to consume him. This really isn’t the plot of the story, which would become the basis of a normal American film, but it is thinly woven within the complexity of the incredible story the filmmakers are trying to tell. What strikes me most about this film is I identify with it completely in the context of my own work and images. It cuts to the core of my own struggle with identity as a man and an artist. It’s the strong subtext from which the images emerge. Yes, though my images are about erotic male and sometimes female figures, this is rarely what the images are actually about. It is the passion and connection one explores and feels within the frame of its existence. The psychology is enhanced with light, color, texture, and composition. It becomes a moment frozen in time. I now know this is why I was so strongly drawn into working in the theater early on and why I am so passionate about watching brilliant cinema. I think the power of all these elements gives us a greater insight into the identity of who we are and becomes the trans-formative power of art. We see this struggle in classic painting particularly those of Caravaggio. Though the struggle for identity has changed through out history it still remains present in great art. My struggle is of my time, as a gay man, exploring my process of socialization through sex, sensuality, health, aging, and a strong desire to connect to a culture that ever remains elusive. Perhaps I put too much into it, but doesn’t it all in the end have to have some sort of meaning. It seems to me we must find dignity in who we are and be able to express and explore what we were truly meant to become. This film does all that in the most powerful way that cinema can. It’s visually stunning, erotically charged, and brilliantly produced on every single level. It is obvious all involved have poured their soul into its production, and it shows. This is what great cinema was meant to be. I often wonder why do so many artisans loose sight of their passion and create such mediocre films. If you are going to take us on a journey, why not make it a good one?

OK so I am going to make the leap. I am planning a trip to Florence Italy during the month of August to meet someone I think can help me get my images and style of photography into more of an international market. It feels this is the year to make it all begin to happen. This is a huge step for me and I have spent the morning getting my passport and paperwork in order for the trip and looking at booking the flights. I have been submitting my images and work on an international level for some time now and am getting amazing feed back from all sorts of people; but right now my greatest desire is to be able to stand in front of and possibly see an actual painting by Caravaggio. I know it will become a supreme moment of my existence to stand in the presence of such greatness. I am already awestruck just by what I have seen in books that I have been studying for years now.

In May it will have been a whole year since I have begun showing my images and 3 months since I began the process of this journal and project. I am overwhelmed by the support I have received from everyone out there looking at my work. As of this moment the project has had over 13,622 viewing, and probably another 800 plus for the days the counter was not working last week. My Red Bubble Portfolio has had 36,704 viewings in about 10 months with tremendous amount of feedback and has been featured in many groups. To me that indicates there is something truly interesting and powerful going on in my work and art, but most important I am finally connecting to people who truly get and understand my point of view.

How much of an impact does our first relationship have on defining our identity and who we become? Years after my first sexual relationship with a man I still feel the impact it has on my current state of being. I was in my twenties when I first fell in love. Some guy had picked me up and had invited me to his house. It was the cold of winter and he lived on the other side of town, so it kind of just started as giving him a ride to his house. One we got there he invited me in for a drink. His house was a mess and freezing cold. He was a student from the University and studying computer science before any of us really know that computer science was even a curriculum. My body trembled terribly to the point I could not control it and began to shake. I could not tell if it was from being so cold or where I suspected this might lead. I remember he gave me a beer and he went in to use the bathroom. I guzzled the beer and almost bolted for the door. I was torn between not being able to follow through and a desire to finally make this happen. When he emerged from the bathroom, I began to make excuses, saying I had to go. But he grabbed a hold of me and brought me tightly into his arms and kissed me. Instantly the tremors in my body melted and the rest become natural.

I think I actually did fall in love in the moment. We spent a year together. When spring came he needed to return to his hometown in Illinois; I quit a very good job to follow him. We spent the summer at his parent’s house in the Midwest and in the fall decided to head to Texas to find work. We finally settled in Dallas where I worked construction on high rise buildings to get us set up in an apartment and up on our feet while he looked for work in the computer business. All the time we were together he never did really find a job or work. I believe in this idealism of finding that one true love and being fully committed to our relationship. I began to slowly find out he did not. He was obsessed with sex; I guess as we all at that age, and while I was always out working was picking up tricks. The more obvious it became, the more emotional pain I seemed to have to endure. It festered the self-doubt and loathing I had already felt for myself. Was I not good enough? Was I not satisfying. All I remember from that time was so much anger and rage and anxiety. Finally he completely abandoned me all together in a strange city with few friends. I have never felt so alone. Eventually I abandoned everything I had there, jumped on a bus taking only what I could carry in my suitcase and headed back to Montana. I knew I had changed and not for the better. I was now cynical and bitter, the innocence shattered. Why had I been lead to believe in a dream that was false from the beginning? Where did these ideals actually come from? Was this the way of being a gay man? I was disillusioned.

It took me years to get over this relationship so I could date others. In fact I am still not sure I trust others to this day. I know I don’t put myself out there, fully committed, even in relationships that have stood the test of time, but I still remember that extraordinary moment when my body trembled in the darkness in a cold dirty house when I still believed in romance and a connection to someone could mean forever. I now see this at the core of a lot of my images. The dark, the cold, lost in a shadow, looking for a bit of kindness in a frail light. Somewhere deep in my heart the romance still remains, because it still emerges within the context of my frame. I can feel it and I can see it, perhaps it is only a dream an illusion I create only for myself.

“I traveled around a great deal. The cities swept about me like dead leaves, leaves that were brightly colored but torn away from the branches.” By Tennessee Williams. Tom’s final speech from The Glass Menagerie.