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Saturday, 24 May marked two important milestones for me as an artist. It was both the exhibition debut of my bad skin series and also my Los Angels debut at large. Exposed: The Contemporary Nude opened at . Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to make it out for the opening. But I’m glad to show work in LA. And it seems very appropriate that bad skin–a body of work about looking beyond the perceived imperfections of one’s body–had its exhibition debut in a city known for it’s superficiality.

If you’d like to see the full image, as well as all the other work in the show, you can do so on the gallery’s website. But remember that it is a show of artistic nude photography and therefore ! They have included two additional photos of mine in . The limited edition giclée print in the show is available exclusively from 1650 Gallery. If you are interested in other prints from bad skin, you can .

is one of my most frequent collaborators. But most of our collaborations are about the work of other people. We put endless hours in to publishing projects at . When we decided to publish a collection of his collected gay erotic fiction, he asked if I’d like to contribute some art. He had seen some of my bad skin series and immediately asked for a specific image from that body of work. The composition, the tone, the mood–everything about the photo was a perfect match for his story “Boracay.�� (I also made an original collage piece for “Mates�� and collaborated with Brian on the cover design.)

Around the same time, S/tick published their “Managing�� issue. The issue collects work created by men that explore the emotional impact a male-dominated society has on its male members. Sarah-Jean Krahn, the editor, liked my bad skin work and thought it perfectly expressed the emotional experiences of men. “I love the vulnerability–and luke’s courage in displaying that vulnerability–in these photos,�� she said. You can find my work both on the cover and inside S/tick‘s “Managing�� issue.

Erotica is . S/tick is .

Rick Villodas’s linoleum cut based on my self-portrait from the cover of INTERSECTION no. 7. His print won an award at the Richter Association for the Arts member art show. Rick is such a talented print-maker and I love the way he transformed my work into a new medium. Above is a photo I took of his print, titled The Collaborator, as exhibited in  (which also contained our Collaboration piece). Below is the cover of my zine his print is based on.

My first publication of 2014 was the Icelandic Video Art video I . I enjoyed so much putting that together that I ended up expanding my introductory text into a full length article. “Less Is More�� includes my original photography and was published in the print edition of Iceland Review (Vol 52, April-May 2014).

This past weekend I showed some work from my for the first time since last year. Rick Villodas, who first saw my muse prints in the , curated the Cyber Blade show. He selected some of the works that were in Just Panic (muse no.’s 7, 11, and 12) along with muse no. 18, which had never been shown before. It was just a weekend pop-up show but I was able to make it up to Danbury that Sunday. It was refreshing to get out of the city for an afternoon (even though it was a bit cold–the venue’s furnace was out that weekend)! Above is a photo of me with my work (photo by Matthew Cales).

Rick also showed collaboration, a work he and I created together! Last summer when he came to Just Panic, I was handing out copies of (issue no. 5). It was a rainy night and by the time he got home, Ricky’s copy of my zine had been ruined. He snapped a photo and sent it to me, asking if I could send him a replacement some time. Of course I did�� but I also thought the wrinkled and damaged zine looked interesting and suggested he do something creative with it. Taking a page from Yoko Ono, I’ve always felt my own work is “unfinished�� and that any other artist should be able to pick it up and and run with it�� transform it�� complete it. This is what Rick did! I’m absolutely in love with how it turned out�� and I’d love to see more of you run with this idea.

Cyber Blade

a group art show curated by Rick Villodas

The Stanley L. Richter Association for the Arts

100 Aunt Hack Rd. Danbury, CT

April 25-27

Opening April 25, 5pm-8pm

April 26 & 27, 2pm-5pm

Today is the last day of the INTERSECTION exhibition at Massillon Museum. I can’t believe it has come and gone so fast. I’m thankful that it has been written about for posterity, though. Here are some great pieces about the show��

Tom Wachunas of ARTWACH wrote of the exhibition. He really took the time to delve into the undertones of what the show is all about. I appreciate it when viewers probe the work and look beyond the surface like Tom did.

Misty Watson of The Daily Citizen wrote as well. Her article is not a review but more of a local interest story that discusses my background in northwest Georgia. Jamie Jones of the same paper had done an article about my Jordan’s Journey project back in 2012 and Misty’s piece is a followup on that.

I also appeared on the podcast Our View with Tim and Jill. We talked about INTERSECTION as well as some other projects I’ve been working on. The episode aired in two parts, so be sure to listen to  ���Ի���.

The is up!

Going into the INTERSECTION exhibition for Massillon Museum, I knew it was going to be lots of hard work. Even before I conceived of doing the Kickstarter to help me get through it all, I had already put in months of work on developing the show and all the things that revolve around it.

But where so much of that work was digitally (and brain) based, things have moved head on into the physical plane now! I feel like the show is manifesting, bit by bit, right before my eyes. And never more-so than when I went to pick up the proofs for the two large pieces I made–with the help of my Kickstarter supporters–specifically for this show.

As they say, a picture is worth 1,000 words�� so rather than write about it, I’m going to show you. In video.

A huge thanks goes out to my collaborator, . I love his music for this video!

Issue’s 8 & 9 of INTERSECTION came out in October and November last year (2013). Busy with my Kickstarter at the time, I never posted the covers here. So here they are now!

The last I updated you here, was under way. If you didn’t already see the news, it was a phenomenal success. The project reached 100% funding before it was even halfway through. I’m so thankful for all of my fans and supporters who helped make it happen.

As part of the campaign I posted several videos featuring the Kickstarter rewards. I thought I would gather a few of those here.

The first video shows my We Are One People artist’s multiple. This is a new work I created earlier in 2013 but I debuted it as part of the INTERSECTION Kickstarter campaign. This limited edition boxed set contains my article “We Are One People�� (originally published in Georgia Backroads) on a set of 12 cards accompanied by a set of 12 mounted digital chromogenic prints. This multiple is super deluxe and high end. See what it’s like in the video:

This one is a video about my :

I also made a video that shows my Jordan’s Journey�����Ǵǰ�.��Jordan’s Journey was an enormous interdisciplinary and multimedia project that I spent most of 2012 putting out into the world. The blog, the videos, the exhibition, the lectures, and the articles were all an important part of it. But the book itself is what it all revolves around. It’s an artist book unlike any other you’ll ever encounter. You could spend hours soaking it all in–and I hope you will–but this video lets you absorb it in a super-quick 1��20��! Think you can read that fast?

The music in that video was composed by my friend and collaborator Michael Harren. He created the music for the Jordan’s Journey short videos I put together in 2012.

In the time since the Kickstarter, I’ve been working hard to get the show–and the rewards–ready. The show opens on March 8th so watch for some big updates soon! For the latest and greatest, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ (links are to the right here on the blog).