Dear Friends,
Thank you for joining my new Patreon! I will be posting my photographs of nude gay men every Wednesday. All work will either be current or archival from my 10 years as a photographer.
Private posts will include full nudes. As well, on December 1, I will announce my paid tier system which will include full digital access as well as access to a new print club !! I’ve seen a lot of snail mail clubs floating around the internet and I love the idea. It will be a great opportunity to showcase my work in a different way, and, for anyone interested, to collect some of my photographs. I’ll make an announcement here when it’s live !! The first order will go out on January 1, 2026.
In the meantime, please enjoy these photographs of me and Naim from my Paris Portfolio series.
Everybody dreams of Paris. All I ever dreamed about was cheap rent and a beautiful studio. So when my friend, a man who owned a one bedroom in the Marais, asked me to help take care of his place, I jumped at the chance. The apartment was small, but by New York City standards, where I lived for 10 years, it was enormous and a bargain. It was very typically “Paris.” The paint was chipping slightly, not enough to be concerning, just enough to be romantic. The building’s courtyard entrance was cobblestoned and uneven. The herring bone wood floor, the pastel family portraits, the porte-fenetre (door-windows) in the main living room let in so much light, a rarity in small Paris apartments. It was perfect.
When I was in high school, we had a class called “Studio Art.” It was a small application based class that only accepted 8 students. Advertised in Vogue, The Wheeler School, as it is called, always had a great reputation for its art program. Back in the 40s, The Wheeler School was home to Gloria Vanderbilt who came there seeking a more serious arts education. It was a big deal to be in Studio Art. There were live figure drawing sessions, color theory workshops, and trips to New York City Museums.
But the real pleasure of the course was the studio room. Wheeler Hall, as it was called, was one of the oldest buildings and heart of the school’s campus. It was where the whole school gathered for plays, and morning announcements. On the top floor was the art studio.
The entirety of the school’s 100 year history was present in that room. The creaky wooden floors and cabinets were littered with paint. The floor to ceiling windows that wrapped around the whole room were fitted with old thick glass. The maze of easels set up facing a still life, set out for days, sometimes led you face to face with a 100 year-old real skeleton purchased when the school opened. Back then, that sort of thing was still legal. The school’s headmistress wanted students to learn to draw anatomy properly.
As you may have guessed, I have been chasing the high of a beautiful studio space ever since.
This series, in fact much of my work, is as much about the spaces I inhabit as an artist as it is about the people I photograph. Probably more, actually. A lot of my inspiration comes from impressionist paintings, where figures stand-in as objects of form, a reflection of light and shadow, rather than as personified humans. The photographs are purely about artistic creation -- perhaps a fantasy -- our personal lives are private.
More to come in the Paris Portfolio soon…
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