Years ago, when I first moved to Los Angeles, I rented a shack for an apartment on Detroit and Fountain, in Hollywood, for $475 a month. It had a full bathroom, kitchen sink, refrigerator, and enough living space for a full size bed, 19 inch TV, love-seat, and my drafting table. That's it. I lived in that apartment for 8 years. I was the only non-Russian in the building, on the street, in the neighborhood. I loved that apartment. Everyone in the building mind their own business even though we were all wise to one another. 4am parallel walks of shame, stumbling up the stairs, reaching our respectful floors, into our individual apartments, no one hurting anyone else, live and let live.
I was originally going to move into the building next door, but upon delivering my first month's rent/deposit check, that building manager was nowhere to be found. Only I alone kept our afternoon appointment. That particular building manager probably rented my apartment out from under me. BUT there was a "for rent" sign on the building next door for the same size apartment.
"Same price. No deposit. This check will cover two months." Said the next door building manager.
Sold!
Lived there 8 years.
I made some good art in that beautiful little shack.
If those walls could talk!
I was always exhibiting somewhere. Nonstop creative flow. I was fortunate to regularly work with a small group of extremely fit male models in their early 20's to late 30's. Most of them had posed in Playgirl, or modeled for adult sex toy companies, posed in erotic magazines, films, your garden variety Hollywood sex workers, etc., etc.
Back then I knew a bunch of male artists who had all exhibited their works together and used the same nude female models, and those female models intro'd me to THEIR male model friends...
The mighty circle jerk of Hollywood.
Good times!
One male model in particular had an almost perfect orbicular scar on his right arm. The scar was deep, and old. The skin tissue on his arm pulled tight around the burrowed flesh like the tiny bullet hole on my leg. I wanted to hear his story. A few times in casual conversation I asked, "What happened there?" But he would only brush me off with a coy none of your business, "Football injury" or "That one time in band camp." He never actually told me how he got that scar. He had great arms though. Muscular. Strong. Steady.
I used to draw that model keeping the scar on his arm. At first it bothered him I included his scar in the drawings but later he was ok with it.
I hung my drawings all over that little shack apartment. Every now and then my neighbors would walk past. If my door was open they'd sometimes knock and inquire after any new drawings. I'd invite them in. They'd look at my work. Talk in Russian amongst themselves. Give me the thumbs up. Maybe have a glass of wine. Leave.
My building manager was a late 40-something, short, heavy set, tough Russian lady with curly brown wire hair, and the craziest laugh I ever heard from a woman. I could hear her laughing from her first floor apartment, around the courtyard and up into my second floor apartment even with my windows shut.
One day my building manager stopped by to check out some new drawings including the the arm-scar model.
"What do you think that is?" I asked my building manager. "He won't tell me what it is, or how he got it. I'm sure I can guess though."
My building manager thought for a minute, then with her index and middle fingers gently traced the air over the arm-scar drawings and quietly said, "Cigar. Many times. I like these."
I exhibited about a half dozen arm-scar drawings I titled STRONG ARM I, II, III, IV, etc.
Today
There's a guy I see around my neighborhood for the past 14 months. He's in a wheelchair. I've only ever seen him in a wheelchair. Really good looking guy. Was he in the military? Was he in a car accident? Was he heroic? Villainous? Was he born without the use of his legs? Super good looking guy. He's caught me gazing at him a few times. Awkward. Once he looked back at me, over his shoulder, arched his eyebrow, serious facial expression. Handsome. There's a Starbucks I go to when he passes by. One day few weeks ago he was right next to me going into the same Starbucks. Perfect opportunity to say hi, he was right beside me, but I chickened out.
Cluck.
Few days ago he was wearing a muscle shirt. Great arms. Strong hands. I'd love to draw him.
It's our job as artists, writers, and actors, to narrate stories. Even the most challenging horrific ones. The craft is in how you articulate.
I'm from Minnesota. Raised tough. Had to be. You either survived the arctic cold winters, survived the kill or be killed mentality, and survived the puritan conformity, or die.
Once upon a time in the U.S. if a man made sexual advances on another man, the "victim" was ALLOWED to commit homicide rather than just say, "No, thank you. I'm not into men."
And
Women had to accept being beaten and raped by their husbands. "Rule of thumb" they called it. A husband could beat his wife as long as the stick he beat her with wasn't any wider than his thumb.
That mentality included Minnesota, for a long time.
And as angry as it makes me, I can't tell those vile stories in my artwork. I'm no good at it. My heart's not in it. Instead I choose not to acknowledge depraved men in my art, but rather put the heroes who fight true depravity (i.e. Chechnya) on my artistic pedestal.
STRONG ARM (2017)
A new series https://instagram.com/p/BSz8cY-g4Xi/
That's what I'm working on.
I love renaissance art. Renaissance artists made their own paint from scratch, that's how important painting was to them. And look what they created with it! I have so much admiration for renaissance sculptors and the men I draw, and what they represent, I chisel my men like marble. Strong and beautiful.
And
I would do so even if I was a man. Of that I'm certain.
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