Rainbow.  As a self-aware gay man I’ve come to understand that my very existence is revolutionary.   I can’t claim to know what it is like to be black, brown, transgender, or any other “other”, but I do know what it feels like to be the “other ” in the room.  And you know what?  I love it.  Not being the only other mind you, I thrive on being around all the other others.  A room full of everyone who is the same is boring.    Being a token is boring.  My favorite color is rainbow, and I think that says a lot about my artistic mindset.  I literally could never decide on a favorite color, and I cannot feel comfortable in a room full of people who are all the same because I much prefer the diversity of color, gender, age, etc.  It means there are new stories to be told from varying experiences, varying voices.   It’s my happy place, even if it is sometimes a fantasy.  ​

Black lives.  I’m often asked who my favorite person is from my painting “Common Threads: the Birth of Pride”. That’s a difficult question to answer, but my favorite to discuss is Essex Hemphill.  Why?  Everyone has heard of MLK and his epic and essential life.  Some have heard of Bayard Rustin, a gay black man who did amazing civil rights work alongside MLK during the 50’s and 60’s.  Despite the LGBTQ curriculum bill taking effect in Illinois and a few other states around the country, the life of Essex Hemphill will most likely not be a story shared in K-12 schools.  

So here’s the scoop.  Essex was a Chicago born, D.C. raised gay black poet who was known for making a giant contribution to the D.C. art scene through his brave writings and readings.  Here we have a young gay black man making a career in the 80’s and 90’s writing poetry about being a young gay black man, and receiving awards, fellowships, and grants for doing so (www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/essex-hemphill).   In 1986 his friend and fellow writer, Joseph Beam, published an anthology of poems from gay black artists entitled “In the Life”.  The anthology included Essex’s work and it received attention worldwide.  After Joseph died of AIDS in 1988 Essex worked with Joseph’s mother to complete the sequel anthology they entitled “Brother to Brother”.  Dorothy Beam invited Essex to come live in her home so they could work on the project together.  While she knew of her sons homosexuality and writing content, she didn’t know of Joseph’s battle with AIDS until after he succumbed to the disease and his writings then hit the grieving mother in a whole new way.  In 1992 Dorothy Beam was quoted as saying, “My son knew I’m a worker, I’m a go-getter... In his heart, my son knows I would finish his book. If there is a heaven, he’s there and he’s smiling.”
 (this information and more on the story of Dorothy Beam can be found in this January 2019 Philadelphia Inquirer article, written shortly after her passing https://www.inquirer.com/news/joseph-beam-dorothy-obituary-lgbt-black-gay-brother-20190105.html). 

Portraying the value of diversity in my work truly is as much fun as it is important to me.  I enjoy the challenge, adding the fantasy factor to real imagery, bringing each piece back to a place where folks can hear it speak to them.  One person’s simple kiss in public is another’s revolution.  One person sees cute elephants, another sees a poignant reminder of a pivotal life moment.  One person sees representation of people in history, another sees themselves represented in history.   From trite to deep, or anything in between, how one sees these pieces is based in their own back-story more than the intention of my vision.

Whimsy.  I’ve long been a fan of curved lines, of flow, of things swirling, falling and dripping.  These natural elements are embedded into my man-made visuals.  Just like you can never fully capture ones fantasy, you can’t fully capture nature either, so I focus on making nature better.  Brighter colors, exaggerated lines, an angel, a dragon, a phoenix rising from the ashes in an abundance of spectral realness.  

The ultimate symbol of strength and renewal so many of us are imagining for ourselves and for the world right now for various reasons.  The global pandemic has not only caused cataclysmic disruption to our lives on it’s own, but it has made the already weak points in our society fracture, and put unique stressors on our relationships.  Like the phoenix, we will rise from this.  Will we ever be the same?  No, and that’s probably a good thing.  In my fantasy we are each using this time to think differently, build and rebuild our skill sets, hold fast to those who are good for us, and chart a new course for the future, rising through the ashes in a resplendent burst of color.  My hope for “Rainbow Phoenix Rising” is that it raises people up along with it. 

​In my opinion, good art, while it may awe, should not make people feel small.  The Statue of Liberty, for example, is seen by some as a symbol of America’s freedom and to others it is seen as a symbol of what America should be.  Two very different views of the same art, and yet either way it uplifts the spirit, maybe with a feeling of pride, or a drive to work harder to better the lives of others.  Either way, we rise with her, lifting our own torches for our own reasons. 

Young at heart.  Millennials and Gen Z are fabulous at being socially aware, and appreciating art.  In any era, younger generations are often looked upon with dismay by older generations.  I have a one-word theory of why this phenomenon exists…empathy.  To expand on that one word, once people reach a certain age it seems that they forget about what the early part of their journey was like, that they were passionate, made mistakes, had fun, pushed the envelope.  Often times parents and guardians raise children as if the child is to pick up where the parents left off, as if the children should have learned from the experiences of the parents to be the kind of better people the parents had envisioned.  That’s not how this works, that’s not how any of this works.  Certainly we can learn the words of others experiences, but the experiences of others are not our own.   We are all individuals and we start from scratch with our own fresh journey.  I truly believe that empathizing with our younger selves is the gateway to good mentoring of the next generation.  This is how we stay young at heart. 

Each generation is a phoenix unto themselves.  Those who have risen in decades past would do well to blow oxygen into the young puissant embers.  This is what being an ally is…helping others to glow.  The journey doesn’t cease to proceed without supporters, but it sure does make the path longer and steeper if we go it alone.  Rising from the ashes doesn’t mean we were ever defeated…it is a rebirth of sorts, but to me the phoenix is the story of those who have been beaten down, not just in this moment, but over time, only to get fired up and ready to go once again.  These are the spirits that never die, and this is the spirit that I hope comes through in my art and in this piece.  Those who are spirited, playful, ageless, those open to learning, those who appreciate the colors of life that even the most privileged among us can view with wonder, those are the hearts that beat loudest in my ears and those are the hearts that I paint for.

So the phoenix is a mythical creature, but is its meaning pure fantasy, or does it signify a reality?  I think that’s up to you…you with the hearts that I paint for. 

Have you ever felt that driving force to to achieve something, striving to obtain that spot on the proverbial podium for what seems like ages, and once you get there you don’t quite know how you’ll thrive in your newfound position?  As a lifelong artist I feel this way pretty regularly.  Sometimes reaching an achievement proves to be lackluster on its own, and it’s not always the giant, glowing, star shooting, confetti falling, angels trumpeting from heaven kind of moment that will stick with us.

​One of my absolute favorite parts of childhood was summer camp.  I loved it because you didn’t have to be “cool” or popular in your everyday life to fit in.  The most awkward among us could thrive, being our best selves.  Having an older brother who was a couple notches cooler than I was in non-camp life sure didn’t hurt.  I had confidence straight away when I got to camp as Paul and I were treated like rock stars the second we’d step out of Mom’s car and were greeted by our summer friends.  Even as the years went on and my brother aged out, I still felt amazingly loved and looked up to, which gave me an abundance of confidence.  A confidence I felt none of at school (Junior High is awful, am I right?!).  Sure I was a good artist, and I showed that off when I could, but at camp I was also seen as a really good athlete (Ikr?!).  Everyone wanted me on their team.  After Paul left camp, I was often the first one picked for sports teams.  Honest to Judy I have no idea why this was the case in kickball…my foot rarely connected with that spherical object, but I digress…   

Swimming days were the best.  Twice a week we were bused over to a local college to use the pool.  I started off in the shallow end with most of the camp.  In the shallow end we spent half of the time learning the basics of swimming and the other half playing games and screwing around.  But there was another side to the pool…where the older kids were…effortlessly swimming laps across the huge expanse of the dark blue section of the pool, diving for rings, being amazing.  

​The deep end.  I wanted to be there.  

​As young artists we spend so much time in the “shallow end”, learning to use pencil, watercolor, clay, paint, etc. playing with mediums we’ve never tried before.  So much practice.  For those of us who always knew we’d end up in a creative field, it was time very well spent, and while we continue to practice for a lifetime, we can’t stay in the shallow end forever.  Our work needs to mean something more, it needs to speak to people…the louder the better if anyone is ever going to hear or see our artistic message. 

​High School art classes were, in many ways, like summer camp to me.  While I was obviously in the room with other kids from school, I thrived there.  I loved creating in that space.  It was the one room in school where I could be as much of “me” as an otherwise shy, closeted high schooler could be.  I credit Mrs. Pope and Ms. Funke for fostering that fulfilling environment…not all art teachers are created equal, and these two gave me that space.   I was good at something…art…and in that room everyone knew it.  It wasn’t just about being good, but some of us were actually interested unlike half of the class, a hilariously inspirational, yet unserious group of people who mostly took these classes for an easy “A”.    

Ha, an “A”.  Grades matter so much more when you really want it.  Junior year I painted the best watercolor I had created up until that point (and it's still my favorite).  It was a scene based off of a photo I had taken in Hawaii the summer before.  I was so proud of that piece.  I rarely used watercolor, so just coming up with such a magnificent output was a clear triumph. 

​A minus.  

​I know Ms. Funke was watching me as my eyebrows furled…looking at the grade she had given me with contempt, alongside the note that said “more motion in the trees”.  I looked around the room at others receiving their grades on their latest projects…pieces of art thrown together in haste by people who didn’t give a damn…half of them got undeserved A’s.  Garbage.  I got it.  More was expected of my work.  She probably figured it would get under my skin and push me to do that much better the next time.   That’s fine…I still wasn’t about to look at her again the rest of the period.  I think of this A minus a lot.   That one grade surely had me subconsciously throwing motion into my work over time in High School and even more so after, as I began my art career in earnest.  It was also a good metaphor for how I’ve felt much of my life.  A minus.  Good, but not quite great, in so many ways.

So there I was, in the shallow end, swimming laps of freestyle and backstroke, trying to make my way through a fun loving, yet sloppy crowd of my fellow A minuses to get from one side to the other.  
And then I heard it.  The voice of  Ms. Nolan.  She was the shallow end swim instructor at the time, and interestingly an artist herself.  She eventually left camp to pursue an art career in Paris.  Gosh I loved her.  She called out to me with her fingers a half-inch apart, “Peter, you’re this close to being in the deep end”.
I was so excited I gulped a bunch of gross shallow end pee water while trying to maintain a good backstroke.  I grabbed the wall, ready to show off the best damn freestyle I’ve ever swam.  

“You’re in the deep end!”  Ms. Nolan proclaimed.  

And she meant immediately.  Thrilled, I jumped out of the pool and walked over to the dark blue waters of the deep end.  There was a different instructor on that side of the pool for “advanced swimming”, he was currently doing a lap of breast stroke, while the handful of others in this exclusive club were taking turns showing off their swimming prowess.  No one was gulping down pee water as they struggled to reach the wall, there were no kickboards, and the atmosphere was much more serene.  As I stared into the water my excitement didn’t disappear, but it was filtered with a layer of “oops”.  Lessons were basically over for the day so I just jumped in.  My feet didn’t touch the ground.  Where’s the bottom?  This is deeper than I thought, and It’s colder.  They probably don’t pee as much in this end.  I could hear the sounds of my friends in the shallow end having fun and splashing around.  I kinda missed them, but hey, I’ll see them back at camp.  On this side of the pool I was the newbie, the weakest link, the youngest, an A minus in a group of A pluses with an opportunity to prove myself once again.  This would be more challenging.  

​I reached this step as an artist years back, when I decided I was ready to take the plunge and express with my liquid colors full time.  It was uncharted waters for me…both scary and exciting as I looked at the vast expanse of options before me, trying my best in a field of well-seasoned artists.   Over these many years, I’ve driven myself to dive through what is expected of a painter.  I feel like I’ve pushed boundaries of subject matter and brought new life to old imagery.  I’ve created whimsy in my work, creating visual stories through color play and unique line work.  I’ve discovered ways to trick myself into “perfecting” each piece like looking at my work in grayscale to make sure I’ve got the color tones the way I want them.  The black and white in my “Thaddeus Art Behind the Scenes” YouTube video was not just creative flare...it was an expansion of this desaturation practice I use for every piece I create...in addition to the fact that I love me some black and white silent film.  The new part for me is the video production itself.  Throughout this new adventure I've shown off my drag persona Champagne Toast, and created S.B.P, Grayson, L.P., and others.  As a group we have been able to bring the artwork to life in a new way on YouTube.

​I’m proud of what my work has become, not just in style or subject matter, but in what it means to others.  It’s the connection with others through my work that I’m most happy with.  It means I’ve done something right so far.  A new gallery opportunity this coming fall will provide me with some amazing ways to connect with new people.  While I enjoy travel and meeting people in new places, over time I’ve realized that there isn’t anywhere to go beyond the dark blue waters, it’s living up to the challenge while being here that is what keeps one afloat.  No matter how we swim, or what waters we come from, it's all one big pool we are swimming in.  I’m still young, and the world has only seen a splash of what I have in my head.  There are countless options for me to explore in the future, diving further, stroking towards an “A”, or dare I say, an “A plus”.  I’m not entirely certain what that will mean for my work, or my prismatic life…all I know is that I will be figuring it out alongside all the others in the deep end.