Art, Nature & Soul #102

Why PRIDE, why parades?

* June being PRIDE month I tend to immerse myself in LGBTQAI+ events, music, film & literature, to celebrate and reaffirm who we are and our place in the world. Its become a way to travel through time & space for me, mine and the history of being. It’s about having a voice.

Many of the stories have sad endings especially before the year 2000. The struggle to fit into a world community that rejects the most basic nature of being, is real. We had went to a major art exhibition here in Chicago at Wrightwood 659, perhaps the largest of its type in the history of the world. I saw a portrait of James Baldwin there and it spurred me to seek and read his most famous "Giovanni's Room". Written in 1956, its more about, fear & self loathing, the closet and it resonates with the words of Harvey Milk'

, “If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door.”

Harvey Milk was an American politician and the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California. Both he and San Francisco Mayor Moscone were assassinated by Board of Supervisors, right wing extremist, Dan White, 1978.

May 30,2025 “Yesterday, one of my FB friends posted an ally PRIDE month show of support on her profile. Another, felt inclined to chime in on his feelings about PRIDE parades. I responded with this post. She later contacted me saying she had been moved to tears by it and asked if she could post it by itself. I of course said yes. Here it is and a Happy PRIDE to all my LGBTQIA+ friends, family and especially to our allies.”

I replied~ “I've always found it's better to ask questions than to make sweeping statements about things I do not understand. My husband and I have been together for 39 years this month. We went to PRIDE events early on, but ended up living in the burbs, with few LGBTQ connections for 20-25 years in between. In the past 8 years I've questioned our decision to just blend in with society at large, especially when so many young are still committing suicide, being kicked out of their homes by their parents and being murdered on the streets. Over the past decade we've been more engaged and going to the PRIDE parades and events, especially with what's going on here in the USA. This year we'll be marching in one of the local parades with our church group, most of whom are not LGBTQ, but allies who understand the importance of community and its support. So long story short, the parade isn't really for you or about you, but maybe an opportunity to learn something about other peoples struggles.”

It seems every pride month I feel compelled to paint some affirmation of who I am as a gay man in America. Earlier this year an FB friend asked, “if you could relive a moment of your life, which would it be?” While I’m unable to find my actual response , it was along these lines. The summer of 1989, Don and I were living with my parents, mom was ill, and we had moved back to help out. It was a blustering hot humid summer day. Don & I were napping in the middle of the afternoon. Somewhere between the state of being awake and sleep, I could hear this piece on the radio softly playing. It turned out to be Phillip Glass’s “Opening & Closing”. Never in my life had I ever felt so alive and connected to the universe. I wanted to just stay in that moment forever, as we, everything. were one.

Transcending time & space in a moment, nothing was separate, everything was one. Its difficult to put into words, but I had never felt so much peace, some much love, some much light. It was surreal and yet definitive and complete. This piece, ‘Opening & Closing’, now over 35 years later, is inspired by the memory of that life changing event, when I realized, I was forever.

“Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one’s definition of your life; define yourself.” — Harvey Fierstein speak truth to power

These are my primary Humanitarian ways to get involved in progressive change, ACLU, Human Rights Campaign, Trevor Project & Matthew Shepard Foundation, besides the UUSG.

‘Opening & Closing’ 30”x30” oil /2025 PRIDE

Art, Nature & Soul #79

I do a fair amount of what I call color studies, mostly in a square format. It’s a place where I allow myself to play with all the design elements…

contrast, balance, emphasis, proportion, hierarchy, repetition, rhythm, pattern, white space, movement, variety, and unity & the more obvious space, line, form, color, and texture.

I do not usually put them on my website except for the occasional blog, to illustrate an idea. Sometimes they’re plein air, other times from a photo, memory or my imagination. It gives my a place to try out a new technique as I’ve mentioned before I strive for a more organic vision & typically avoid a more static or contrived patterns.

Mostly these stand on their own, as completed works, that said, they’re also sometimes studies for larger artworks. They can serve as gateway purchases for the new collectors, although I’ve also had a customer do a 4 seasons composition of more local themed pieces. They also make wonderful accent pieces that can be hung or set on a bookshelf easel. However they move you, I hope its to a happy place, a memory or a place you’d like to be.

~Richard

A selection of 10”x10” & 12”x12” from 2023

Art, Nature & Soul #76

PRIDE~ Creating figurative art, is one of my favorite subjects to explore. When I was in my teens & 20s, besides the occasional commissioned portrait work, they tended toward the more surreal as I figured out who & what it wanted to be as I grew up. Today I still play in that arena fusing figures with symbol & mythology from yester year, as well as the now & ones I’ve created. As I’ve recently written,

"I paint my life, as I experience it. I’m not merely an abstract painter or a land, sea or cityscape one or even a figurative one for that matter. The internal as well as the external mechanisms engage and compel me to paint my life, how I think, feel it, how I experience it and how I live it…my paintings are a diary, a catalogue and a chronology of happenings." ~Richard

Which is to say, my art is my therapy of sorts where I express my deepest & most intimate details of my life.

Early on it was apparent in hindsight that I was figuring out my sexuality, then screaming here “I AM”. While I’ve toned down the more, in your face, aspects of these type artworks. I still promote a untied world view where everyone’s equal, accepted & loved.

My husband Don & I have spent most of our lives, 37 years together, blending in with the community population in the burbs. We made this choice decades ago for a variety of reasons. Importantly, in living in the regular population rather than a more city LGBTQ colony. I thought it was an opportunity to show & share who we are as human beings to persons less familiar with same sex relationships. Our outness has varied over nearly 4 decades but we have never denied who we are. Growing up, my family & I lived next door to a lesbian couple, that became family friends over the many years. It seemed to me the best way to get people to get over there fear of things they didn’t understand was to show them that we, in many, if not most ways, live a similar life as you. Although some of our individual struggles may be different, LOVE IS LOVE. Currently, we’re wanting to do more for & be a support of the LGBTQ community as the climate of hate has been escalated here in the USA.

Each of these, plus innumerable others artworks are meant to show, whether , more realistic, abstract, contemporary, modern or impressionistic, my love of people & the various human conditions & the ambiguous nature of being.

As always your questions & comments are encouraged & welcome, Richard

Art, Nature & Soul #47

About 15 years ago, My artwork was exhibited in a Chicago gallery, I was told by the gallery owner, “Some people won’t buy your artwork, if they know you’re gay.” I was doing, in part, more design orientated abstracts at the time, so I simple did a series where I put one stenciled letter in each piece, when laid out in order & together it said, “A Queer Boys Story”. I decided then, enough was enough, no more in & out or hiding!

This piece is a throwback to some of my earliest paintings, some 35 years ago. My teens were fraught with deep confusion, angst & turmoil as I struggled to come to terms with who I was. The mid 1980s in my early 20s I had finally begun to understand who I was, where I fit in & to embrace my sexuality. As I turned 20 I simple proclaimed, “I Am” & continued to play the androgynous, bi guy, for a time, before committing to the male/male scene. Much of the artwork I created then, revolved around exploring these themes & things, in a world that had barely begun to understand, muchless accept a more varied concept of human sexuality. I identify as QUEER & my pronoun is ‘Thone’.

Now as then, these themed artworks were meant to be in your face, in your mind & make you think... A way to say, I am here, so get used to it, over it. In 1962, Illinois, the state I live and grew up in, became the first state to take the archaic sodomy laws off the books. I was born in 64’. By 1982, the year I graduated from high school, HIV/Aids was at the forefront of happenings and we had a president who was doing everything possible to ignore and play it down. It was, “only effecting the homos” anyway, or so they thought. In 2020, we had a president who blindly, knowingly sacrificed hundreds of thousands of Americans to another world wide pandemic, COVID, for his own narrow minded cause….power, money & greed, while at the same time, undermining & rolling back 100s of educated/enlightened/progressive policies, including those designed to acknowledge & integrate the LGBTQ communities in the U.S.A. When your country, your world is at war with you, you fight back, art was/is my vehicle and the message is, I AM!

History is more circuitous than linear, LGBTQ people exist in every culture from the beginning of time, throughout the ebb and flow of acceptability. It’s only when person’s of the ‘ME” instead of the ‘WE’ persuasion, impose their will over human nature that persons of minority become outcast rather than embraced. When you put aside your fears & insecurities, one seeks knowledge, you receive understanding, enlightenment and begin to realize everyone/thing has a purpose and value in the world. With the devastating & brutal attacks on the LGBTQ communities across the planet swinging back around to the U.S.A., I felt compelled to assert my presence as a person who will fight the good fight for whoever is under attack by the masses. Freedom, Equal Rights & Anti Discrimination, for all & to secure for all individuals freedom from discrimination against any individual because of his or her race, color, religion, sex, national origin, ancestry, age, order of protection status, marital status, physical or mental disability, military status, sexual orientation, pregnancy, or unfavorable discharge from military service.

As mentioned above, while the theme here is one I explored in my artwork some 35 ish years ago. the execution is different in many ways. This piece was painted over a 4 month period of layering and enhancing. I utilize a variety of brushes, palette knives, pencils, paint markers, scratching tools and even tissues to achieve the desired aesthetic. Here we have lots of scribbles, marks & erasures, plus abstract & realistic elements, I began with a 4 color acrylic drip & splatter painting, then began to paint me in, a layer of ebony pencil written graffiti & symbols, oil painted some blocks of color & form, oil pastel enhanced, charcoal stick, 18K gold paint giving more line and symbol, my signature 18k gold leaf addition & then stenciled the unmistakable word QUEER. Next it was time to entitle the piece, ‘Queer AF Selfie’, ‘57 Special’, were on the table, but my original thought stuck, “Portrait of the Artist in His 50s”, 40”square mixed media on canvas was finalized with my signature.

As always feel free to ask question or comment,

Richard R. Sperry

‘Portrait of the Artist in His 50s’ 40”x40” mixed media on canvas $57,000.00 available

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