outline for my identity project.

The ideas / issues that am exploring in my identity project are sex and religion. I have been gay my entire life. This is not something that happened over the years through accumulated experience. This is not a hormonal surge that started with my sexual coming of age. It is intrinsic to my character. I was gay in kindergarten and it was obvious. I was also catholic. These two areas of my identity came into direct confrontation with one another when I was 13. Puberty was in full swing and about to be confirmed. The year was 1983 and the pastor of my parish who was “teaching” my confirmation class had some particularly ugly things to say about AIDS being a punishment. I had always been good at religion. My intention was to become a priest. I had some bible quotes for my “teacher”. I was barred from the class and possibly heaven. Sr. Ausumpta , my home room teacher found me in the hallway and had me explain how I got there. When the pastor had left the classroom she took me into the class and closed the doors, all the doors even the ones leading to the coat room. . She gathered the entire class around her in a huddle so we could hear her as she whispered. In a clear and gentle voice she told us “Ignore everything that mean, bigoted, old-man just said to you. I have not devoted my life to an angry and vengeful god. My God, our God is one of forgiveness, mercy and love. You are about to be confirmed, you are becoming adults in the eyes of the church. You all know when someone is acting out of love and when someone is not. You must think for yourself.”
That afternoon defined me. That remarkable, simple, woman gave me permission to trust myself to “know better”. and I do. This project will allow me to play with some of the rich cultural history of both the catholic church and the gay male culture.

I will be re-constructing classical Christian images through Photoshop and possibly Illustrator using web based gay imagery as a palette. I will be attending the basic of web design in the CAC on 07NOV06 and 09NOV06 in order to post the final images on the internet and possibly animate the images.

In addition to the classes and scouring internet through google image search. i will be reading various books that I feel add insight or shed light on the project. These will be posted to my blog as they are utilized. I would also like to explore some of the image store houses that the library has access to.

A very basic time line.


Nov 7 I will have decided what classical images I will be playing with. I will have started a listing of google searches that provides me with images. I will have finished the first book. “The last supper”. The story of an artist who was hired in 1951 to paint an exact duplicate of DaVinci’s Last Supper. He felt that inorder to be true to the painting he had to understand Leonardo as a man and painter and his relationship with each of the apostles. I will post to my blog at least once a week to confirm my progress and share the process.

Nov 14 I will have finished my CAC courses and will be able to determine to what extent I can play with these images given the time restrictions. I will have secured at least two more books and searched at least one image storehouse. I will have decided on six of the apostles.

Nov 21 I would like to work solely on the image this week. Deciding on the final six apostles and Jesus as well as their environment.

Nov 28 present to the class