It had been 9 years since I had been to New York City. Once I had a lover there when I lived in San Francisco, and found myself flying there every other month to see him, until I couldn’t afford the travel and was far too in love (and stubborn) with SF to actually move there. Fast forward to last week, 2012, and I am back on a plane to NYC for inspiration for a piece.
The 10x10x10 project with Disney Fine Art led me to New York for a piece for the Metropolitan series. Sure I could have surmised a piece based on my previous experiences, but the city was more or less about my ex lover than the city itself, I felt the need to return to the big apple to fully immerse myself in the cityscapes, culture, and people, to REALLY get a visual grasp for the piece.
While on the plane, waiting to fly out from Los Angeles, I had found out within 5 minutes of each other that I had been nominated for 1. Man of the year for 2012 in a great gay lifestyle magazine (results and magazine announcement pending in October), and 2. A fellowship from a fantastic museum in Washington D.C. (results and museum announcement pending). Both of these accolades caused me to jump out of my seat screaming in excitement, and thank god the passenger next to me was a calm, cool, and collected man from LA who took my exuberance with happiness. I had landed already in a city starry eyed from the future, and took with me that incredible happiness (and resulted confidence) to the places I visited while on my stay.
The trip was unexpectedly filled with such nostalgia and tying loose ends to the past where I was both previously a lost teenager in the South and a ‘stumbling through my young adulthood’ ex lover. I will go over my finds in sections posted by the pictures above.