Breaking out of the boxes

I still find it difficult to believe that anyone would be interested in anything I could write here, and so I usually last for only a couple blogs before I move on.  Truth is, though, that I journal most days in a journal that only I can read.  Sure, some of this is because I am a private kind of guy.  But mostly, it’s kept private because no one else really wants to read this stuff...right?

Shortly after my last post—May of 2018–almost a year ago, I signed up for a men’s retreat that I hoped would allow me to play with my own identity. Truth is, I’ve had a lifetime of living my life and making decisions based on what others might think is “acceptable” and determined to only show the parts of me that pass muster.

That’s a shitty way to live, though.  Pardon my language.  Everyone needs to live their full authentic self, and find communities that not only ALLOW this, but also CELEBRATE it.  Individuality is a gift.  I AM A GIFT, damnit!

Well that Men’s Festival was amazing.  I’m still buzzed from it.

Artistically I’ve been putting some of what I’ve been learning into collages!  Collages! I hadn’t made those for decades. But I took an online course through the university of Florida called “Healing With the Arts” and one of the early assignments was to make a collage.  I put some of the images floating in my mind into a collage—ideas I had originally determined to make into art quilts.

And then I made another one.  And a third...and suddenly, I’m determined to do a rather large series of collage pieces.

Here’s a photo of the first collage:

(Photo removed because I just figured out that those images I cut up and glued down were probably copyrighted, and I do not have permission to republish them. Copyright is to be taken seriously, folks!  Come visit me sometime and I’ll show you my work).


There is a lot there to unpack.  I’m not going to unpack it all.  Here are some major parts of it:

House burning down.  Out of the fire, a new person arises...phoenix.  This phoenix is a naked-to-the-world (and also, literally a naked) man (see the beard I added to this plump fertility goddess?  Also wearing jewels and a FABULOUS headdress—this one is playing with gender roles.  Behind this person are crowds of people being what he once thought was the acceptable norm, and people “resisting” the way it’s been done.  This is a piece about coming alive as who I’ve always been—no filters—and celebrating what I discover.

And away we go....