What a productive week. It’s hard to believe I have not written here for about a week. The week away from any “actual work” has turned into a string of creative endeavors. On New Years Day I was able to create a series of new self-portraits for the year as I began to see myself from a new perspective. I had been working on creating a vintage image of an actress for a film project being shot in Butte, so I had studied the old lighting techniques. I printed and framed the image in an old vintage frame and it looked vintage as if it had always been in that frame, and was of the 30’s. So I decided to take the same approach with my own self-portrait and loved the result. I then went to Butte for a couple of days and worked as a lighting consultant on a low-budget independent film project, being shot throughout the old historic city. Unfortunately just as things were just getting rolling I had to leave to come back for a photoshoot in Missoula.

It has been a week of reflection as I have actually done a lot of work on the website. Beginning to build galleries of the old blog images, month by month, which were used last year. Creating a snippet and link to the blog to make it more accessible, which in a sense, means reworking all the links and loading new images into the new web blog, essentially archiving it. It’s fascinating to go back and look at what I created last year, the progression and flow of it. I also had the opportunity to begin working through a backlog of shoots that were done last year but never processed or sorted; there are so many beautiful images beginning to emerge that had been completely overlooked. One of the funniest things beginning to happen is that I’m able to catch up with old friends I have not seen or talked to because of last years project. Looking back I am quite surprised that I was able to achieve such an undertaking and maintain the project throughout the year. I started conversations with other artists and feel I became a part of an awesome community of artists.

And yes I have been watching movies, some good, some not so good, trying to catch up on what I missed taking the year off. Best of all I am back to doing research as I have a sensational new kid coming to work with in the studio this afternoon on some new images. It is time to put together the test of all I have gained through out the year now in practice and see where it will take me. I have also had days with absolute nothing, and I must say I felt a bit lost, but tired to remain in it. I thought last year was a sensational year for me and everything this year seems to be growing out of it. It’s funny that I now see so much change within myself, that I could not see evolving because I was too close to it last year. The project must have been a big success because though I have not contributed to it in a about a week there is still traffic upwards of 500 to 600 a day looking at it. It has been good to step away and have some time to reflect.

You know me, I have got a song from musical theater buzzing through my head this morning and it seems appropriate for the final blog of this year long project.  (play video at bottom)  The second act of the musical RENT opens with a fantastic production number call Season’s of Love in which the cast asks, “How do you measure a year in the life?” As they break the year down to “five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes.” Well here it is the last day of the year, and somehow beginning this project I didn’t think I would quite make it to the end. I was never sure where the project would lead or where it would end up. Today is a celebration of accomplishment and thus begins a new era of my life. I have faced the world and myself without trepidation and now see both from a new perspective. Beginning this year long process of facing my fears as a man, who had felt his past his prime, moving into middle age, living in an environment focused mostly on the vitality of youth. Finding myself in a despondent world of sensual/sexual ambivalence. Questioning the essence at the core of my identity as one man’s exploration in finding himself and his search for light, beauty, desire and art. As the year closes I can say I found all, especially myself. To examine one’s life it seems to give it meaning and certainly greater understanding of fear, doubt, and lack of self confidence that have oppressed most of my adult life. Recognizing not just to the negative, but also the positive. I have seen and felt great moments of joy and elation through out the year as it was filled me with lots of surprises. I have always felt a certain amount of shame that I had never arrived at that moment in my life that would say you have made it, and now I wonder if such a moment even ever exists. Does it become a part of the mythology of who we think we are? As an artist I learned to question life and learn and grow from every experience good or negative. To search for meaning in myself, then interpret that meaning into a form of expression that I can share with others. The medium held lots of barriers for me, as I am not a writer, was terrible at grammar and genetically could not spell, yet I some how saw beyond those barriers to express what was most meaningful to me. I see now I have always been filled with a passion that is far greater then can be contained. My images follow the same pattern, there is no formula for what I do and each set of images becomes a unique as the subjects I work to create. I am a mostly self taught photographer whose passion again is greater than myself and the expression manifests itself through the vastness of my life experience. I have discovered that art is never about what is on the surface but what lies within it. How does it make me feel? If it elicits a response then the artist is successful. As a man I was taught to reject the male nude figure, to suppress emotions, and to become a pillar of strength and morality. To become a gay man always seems to be a contradiction of all those precepts culture thrust upon me. I always thought perhaps this was a Montana thing because we do not embrace the things we can not understand, yet through out this year, as I began to communicate with others I see it is universal. Things we don’t understand typically get pushed away and often times become suppressed because we don’t have to tools to deal with them. Being a gay man growing up during my time and in the place I did, I have been greatly misunderstood. But I have also seen people’s perceptions change once they realize and begin to see who I truly am. It seems there are very few role models in my world of gay culture that seem healthy and strong and so much of my community becomes self-loathing. Yet that beauty exits breathtakingly through out the history of art. We see the beauty of the naked man, without shame, in the glory of god’s light and grace. That strength and morality become radiant filled with a visible passion for acceptance, tolerance, and compassion.

Today’s image is the earliest surviving images to the digital era as my first exposure of a nude man. The subject was a straight man with whom I began to shoot portraits and experimental images in the studio. Eventually, after many months, working up the nerve to expose him completely. My own internalized homophobia becoming my greatest obstacle to overcome. At the time it seemed less complicated to him than me. This is simplicity at its purest form for me as I still adore this image. The moment of this image became the greatest leap in my life, a leap I am glad to have taken. A moment when I knew my life would change forever.

The project will continue as will the blog, but not on a daily basis. I have found it takes a lot of perseverance to bring myself to this process everyday, but for now I am taking a break to realign my myself, redefine my objectives, and recharge my life. The website now will become a focus as I hope it will grow to become a collective to other artists expressions. I still have my sights set on reviving the Man Art site in the upcoming months. So here ends my year with a great appreciation to all those who have embraced me and helped me to this end. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
~Terry

“Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Six hundred minutes,
Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Moments so dear.
Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Six hundred minutes
How do you measure, measure a year?

In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights
In cups of coffee
In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife.

In five hundred twenty-five thousand
Six hundred minutes
How do you measure
A year in the life?

How about love?
How about love?
How about love? Measure in love”
Music and lyrics by Jonathan Larson from the musical RENT

Has this project actually become a reflection of myself?  Have I become Narcissus merely looking into a pool of water only seeing myself?  As the project comes to a close I am beginning to question the process from which it all springs.  I wonder if showing a man exposed and the process of exposing myself has really been appropriate.  Should such intimacy be left behind closed doors?  But I see such beauty in the world and classic art is adorned by such images.  I cannot imagine the world without such images of Hippolyte Flandrin’s “Young Man Beside the Sea” or the works of Michelangelo and Caravaggio exposing the soul without exposing man as he truly is: naked, alone, radiant.   Today’s image I had originally rejected because I could see myself working in the reflection of the mirror behind Chad as we shot.  Also the source of the light is visible over his shoulder.  To me images should be without either; flawless and seamless, to stand alone without distraction.  But such an image seems appropriate as I close this project because it shows me involved in the process and in a sense becomes a self-portrait, a reflection of a years work.

I went to the bank yesterday to make a deposit and all the female bank clerks seem to recognize me.  I popped into my friend Monica’s office, who is my banker there, and we began to chat.  She began to tell me how incredible the project has become and how touched she was by what I’ve been writing, particularly about the kid who committed suicide a while back.  As I watched her talk I could see how utterly moved she has been by the entire project.   Apparently it had become a topic of conversation amongst her coworkers, around the water cooler sort of stuff.  I had no idea she has been following the project at all.  The other day Thor said he was working at a place in Hamilton, a small community 45 miles south, when a woman came in and recognized him from the project, who also was moved by it.  I am suddenly becoming aware that I really do have a following of people in Montana that are mostly straight women.  It feels most everywhere I go, when I actually get out that people have a spark of recognition.  Perhaps this project has reached deeper into my own community then I originally thought.  My afternoon was filled with a sense of satisfaction that I am finishing the daily blog portion of the project knowing that I have had an influence on the world the surrounds me.  That the themes are universal that so many others in my community find their own truths in what I say.

Next week I am scheduled to work on a film project in Butte as a lighting consultant for the cinematographer.  I will also be working on the publicity images for the Montana Rep’s upcoming national tour of the play DOUBT.  So my week and days off are beginning to fill with other creative ventures.

What has brought me to this project is light; I am still deeply fascinated by light.  It has such a psychological impact on the way we attach emotional context to our world.  I know the upcoming weeks I will get back to my exploration of light.  I have grown so much this year and have paved my way for a remarkable future of creative exploration.  The new year will bring for me a greater sense of self confidence as I begin to reconnect back into the community that surrounds me, and reach out to other artists who are here.  This year long project has isolated and confined me a bit because it has consumed so much of my day.  Missoula is a fantastic place to get out and meet others, we have the most amazing coffee shops and restaurants of anywhere I have ever been in the world.  It’s time to move back into that social realm of living again.

The Naked Man Project will continue to grow, I have vast plans to clean through the old blog and begin to organize it.  My garden job has not been renewed for next summer, due to budget cuts, so my focus this year can be mostly on my own creation.  In a sense it is a huge relief.   It will now force me to find other ways to make money and see if I can somehow make my photography more fiscally viable.  So if anyone needs a photographer I am open for anything.  Right now my focus needs to be back to myself.  When I began this year I was at the prime of fitness in my life working out everyday.  But as my mornings were filled with blogging for a year, I have grown a bit soft from too much sitting.   It is time to bring that focus back to my physical self, to climb a mountain and look out over the vast wilderness that still surrounds me.

It feels like spring has hit Montana today.  The temp is in the 40’s, all the snow has melted, and I am feeling like I want to get out and clean the hillside behind the studio.  Well maybe at least get outside for something.

I began looking at my objectives I set on the second day of this project when this project began.  “My goal here is to explore my own artistry and desire to create beautiful images of the male nude and expose my inner sensual/sexual identity though a daily blog. The project: for one year I will post a new image each day that I have created and examine my need to create it.”  At that point I had not real vision of what I wanted or needed to achieve with the project and could set no quantifiable goals because I had no concept of where the project could possibly lead.  In my head I basically wanted to force myself to come to this process everyday, grow, and hopefully make what I was doing somehow marketable or profitable.  I had a strong desire to connect with other artists and become a part of an international collective of male nude artists.  I wanted to break down some of the barriers, fears, and phobias that surround the male nude as an art form with my eye always toward some sort of commercial success.  I felt the world around me was collapsing as my world of standard commercial photography began to decline and evaporate.  I began the beginning of the year completely shaken and apprehensive in which direction to actually move.  I recognized one of the explorations of photographing men nude was one of my passions, but I didn’t really have the confidence in my ability to pull off such an endeavor.  The major obstacles I had to overcome was being in Montana and the already over saturated marketed of male nude art; perhaps I should say access to naked men online.  So I guess all along I knew the project would mostly be a self-exploration, which indeed it has become.  But more then anything I wanted to become a recognizable artist who had a passion for creating a healthy vision of what the nude male could embody without derogatory or explicitly sexual connotations.  I am, and have always been, interested in how we deal with ourselves in that moment when we are raw and bare, naked, fully exposed.  I live in an era and culture, well here in Montana, where others rely heavily on picking each other up for sexual encounters, and anonymity rules these encounters.  You see we really don’t have bars here or a practical means of socialization. In Missoula, many people meet via the Internet hookup sites like Manhunt, Adam for Adam, Craig’s List, and we have several very active bookstores filled with glory holes, so you don’t even have to see the person you are engaging with. Many of these sorts of encounters seem to lack any sort of emotional connection, thus separating us from our true sensuality. Many of us are isolated from each other as our sexual identity becomes compartmentalized.  Part of what I began to discover early on with photographing males nude was that it brought a greater self-esteem to many of the subjects I shot, giving them a better vision of who they were, healthy, strong, romantic, beautiful, and sexually alluring, showing them a new way they could see themselves that was not demeaning or degrading.  Something I wished someone had taken the time to show me when I was that age.  You see most of my life has been a struggle for a healthy vision of myself, something I just couldn’t see for myself.  Something I learned by making lots of bad choices and often, harmful mistakes.  I have never charged for these sorts of shoots; we are a poor country with little money for such endeavors, and my policy has always been an exchange for image or other work sort of approach.  My process is highly experimental and the subjects would allow me the time to experiment and explore new lighting themes for other more commercial work.  But somehow it is this process that endures and becomes the true essence of myself that quantifies the objective.  There really is no price to be set on this.  Though I offer these images for sale, I have yet to sell a single image.  Perhaps the work is to personal and thus does not really qualify as art.  Though I have named it art throughout the year I am beginning to see the possibly it is not art at all and my approach as been null.  Perhaps it only has meaning to those who have been through my process with me.  Have I met the goals of my objectives I set in the beginning?  I think so; I have brought myself to the process nearly everyday for a year and exposed my inner sensual/sexual identity through my imagery and words.  It has not been a commercial success whatsoever, but I have connected and communicated with that community of artists I have always looked to for adoration.  This project now draws to a close with a greater sense of self-satisfaction as I know I have only changed a small corner of my world.

All that I have written here is about my world as I have experienced it.  There was never any intended malice directed any at specific individual or group.  If you feel you have been bitten by these words, perhaps you have recognized the truth within yourself.  I have tried to be honest in my accounting of who I am and only write about the things I know.  I have approached it as a sort of retrospective about the things that have greatly influenced my journey.  My life has spanned many decades of change in our times and culture and it was intended to give an accounting of that evolution.  To, in a sense, create a history of who we are and the issues we have dealt with living in a turbulent era.  In a way, my life spans the entire movement from silent self denial to the dawn of total acceptance as we recognize our ability to unite legally via a long and bumpy epidemic that has both devastated a greater sense of our selves as well as rebuild a world with a greater feeling of community.  All that I have ever dreamed has come true in my lifetime and I hold my head up with pride and dignity that I have experienced such a richness throughout it.  This was an important year for me as a person as well as an artist.  I have experienced tremendous growth on both sides.  There have been sleepless nights; days and days lost in thoughts with moments of great joy, fear, and self-doubt as I have tried to remain true to it all.  I have written approximately a singe page every day; sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less, and I now see a massive opus that bewilders even myself.  It was my intent to write something every day and post a new image throughout the entire year.  Coming to the end so far I have only missed 7 days, which I think is extremely remarkable.  I am still not sure who follows this, but I know there have been some from the beginning and I thank you because I have always felt your presence.  It has been an honor and a pleasure to have you on my journey and I am eternally grateful to all those who have picked me up along the way.  I have always believed that art and life are a collaboration and now realize to create a blog is probably one of the greatest collaborations one can undertake.  Thank you for the remarkable year and experience.