Beard of the Week L: Portrait of the Artist
self-portrait copyright © 2008 by Bill Pusztai (source), used with permission.
This week's beard belongs to Bill Pusztai, a photographer and artist living in Toronto. In this photograph he seems to be doing some yoga but, for our purposes, he is displaying his magnificent beard as well as drawing attention to the gorgeous tattoo on his left forearm. The tattoo of the grass is relatively recent (Phleum pratense, or, commonly, "Timothy Grass", he tells us) and documented in this photograph.
Web-two living can be very confusing for older, twentieth-century people like me. Most recently I tripped over Bill at Flickr. I saw some photographs that looked good and had a look I thought I recognized. And his name was familiar to me. I made him a contact, he made me a contact. Then we started the conversation: where do I know you from? We weren't entirely sure but we narrowed it down to one or two of the online forums we both participated in sometime between 1992 and, say, 2004 or so. Not that it particularly mattered.
Bill suggested that I make up a biographical story for his because, he claimed, his real biography was one of Wal*Mart banality.* But I won't because I refuse to believe him. I can't! I must believe that artists, all artists, have fascinating lives filled with romance and adventure. It's my version of a childhood adopted-princess myth: if I can just escape from my own banal existence and become a real artist then I will surely discover a fascinating life filled with romance and adventure. It's what keeps me going, I'm sure. Sorry, Bill–"deliciously scurrilous" would be fun, but I have my own delusion to feed. I know you'll understand.
One thing that is clearly important to Bill is figurative art: creating images of human figures. I like figurative art; I think it's important or, at least, it's something that humans respond to strongly. I respond strongly to Bill's photographs. They seem beautiful and significant to me, and I think that's enough aesthetic analysis for now.
Earlier this year (the second weekend in June) Bill exhibited at the "Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition 2008". He reported on the experience in a blog posting (follow the link to see pictures of his tent), from which I've waited to extract these exceedingly perceptive and useful observations:
- This happened five times: young Asian women, maybe 20-25, looking briefly at some portfolio pieces and marching up to me and demanding why I took pictured of "disgusting hairy men", while their boyfriend/husbands looked mortified and scrutinised the ground or the ceiling. It was so very funny but I couldn't laugh cause they were utterly serious and genuinely indignant. I don't know what to make of it.
- I am so immersed in the gay in my day to day life that I forget a simple fact – arty straight women "get" the body image pictures, without needing to have them explained.
- Duh. I read as "biker" to straight people. (NB: wear more tie-dye and/or love beads? patchouli? pointy wizard hat and robes? yarmulke?)
- Duh. I am exotic to people from teh burbs.
You will of course notice that, apparently, Bill and I are co-sympathetic on the subject of "disgusting hairy men". But mostly I found it very useful to be reminded of my own place in suburban life with this tasty little morsel: "Duh. I am exotic to people from teh burbs." No doubt one reason I write dirty stories about "disgusting hairy men" is to heighten my suburban exoticism, albeit in a largely invisible way, which forces me to talk more about my fiction in refined social settings, of course.
I mentioned last week that I thought I was going to talk about the distinction I do not make between "pornography" and "erotica". Here's the connection.
If you take some time, as I hope you will, to look at some of Bill's work (links below), you will spot the obvious fact that Bill makes portraits of people (I decided to write "people" rather than "subjects" for a reason) by considering the entire person, which is a way of saying that he makes nude portraits. I thought I'd read a statement of his about this someplace but I can't find it now. However, I don't think you'll have any difficulty imagining your own version of his artistic statement in which he finds the human figure, all of it, a beautiful thing and that the entire body of a person has a role in expressing the personality in an interpretive portrait, and so forth.
In my writing I frequently depict sexual encounters between men. For one thing, that's expected in the market I usually publish in. For another, it's a challenge to me to write a good sex scene. For another, it's a challenge to tell a good story regardless of the sex. For another, sex is part of living and I think there's value in writing about it and talking about it without squeamishness or embarrassment. The latter, by the way, only come with practice. I know–I've done public readings.
Sex and sexuality are not well integrated into most people's lives, and I think that's a problem. They are particularly not well integrated in many gay men's lives, and I think that's a big problem that I do my bit to try and address. Nobody knows better than gay men, particularly closeted gay men, what it is to separate one's sexuality from one's everyday life, and the result is not healthy. That's why taking the first step towards reunification–coming out–can seem like such a relief and such an infusion of honesty accompanied by a dispersion of internal conflict.
That's why I don't like to help maintain a distinction between "erotica" — good dirty stories or pictures — and "pornography" — bad dirty stories or pictures. I think it's a false distinction with, ultimately, unhealthy consequences.
Likewise, I've seen plenty of Flickr groups (say) that insist their group only contain "tasteful" nudity. I think you can guess already how quickly I avoid their company–they've still got some serious issues to work out as far as I'm concerned and I'd prefer to put my energies elsewhere.
I'm presuming by say this, but I expect that Bill would never describe his nude portraits as exhibiting "tasteful" nudity because it's a ridiculous distinction. Bill's portraits are often nude portraits and they show us the entire person–we are all people with bodies.
Are they erotic? It's really another pointless distinction. We are sexual beings and virtually everyone we meet is, however briefly, evaluated someplace in our brain as a potential sex partner. I am not behaving as a fully integrated human if I look at one of Bill's portraits of "disgusting hairy men" and do not evaluate what I see in a sexual way in addition to an aesthetic way and all the other ways I can respond to a visual image.
Personally, I don't like to help people maintain the fiction that they can separate their sexuality so cleanly from the "real them" (in the manner, perhaps, of Log-Cabin Republicans), nor help them maintain a false dichotomy between "good" ways of talking about sex and sexuality and "bad" ways of talking about sex and sexuality.
In similar manner Bill makes portraits of his people that often incorporate their entire body, but their attitude to me says that nobody here, photographer or subject, is snickering, or nudge-nudging, or winking about some distinction between "erotica" and "tasteful nudity".
It's refreshing and it aligns with my own perspective on the subject. It also takes away one of the impediments in the making of great art.
I do hope you'll spend some time looking at Bill's photographs. He groups his Flickr photostream into three collections of sets: men, women, and botanicals. Indeed, that covers lots of his interests, but the set of sets includes other topics, too. (One of my favorite sets is "Nothing Rhymes with Orange", a collection of portraits of red-headed men–my favorite flavor. You might also enjoy Bill's set of self portraits, from which the above photograph is taken.
His professional website with services offered and a portfolio is Radiant Page. He also shares many of his photographs and some writing at his LiveJournal: bitterlawngnome.
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*Here's all the autobiography I could find: "I was born in 1965 in Hamilton Ontario and presently live and work in Toronto, with frequent trips to Hamilton and occasional forays to the US."
In: All, Beard of the Week, Faaabulosity, Music & Art
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I welcome comments -- even dissent -- but I will delete without notice irrelevant, rude, psychotic, or incomprehensible comments, particularly those that I deem homophobic, unless they are amusing. The same goes for commercial comments and trackbacks. Sorry, but it's my blog and my decisions are final.
on Monday, 22 September 2008 at 14.30
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Jeff, thanks for highlighting Bill's work. I wasn't aware of his art — I am so far past the suburbs that I don't get into TO much! Now I can check it out online, thanks.