Having been so sick this past week, I am once again reminded of my mortality. Thus, before I die, I would like to state the reasons I write this blog. I shall continue to enumerate these from time to time, and begin today with the most important.

The production of the body of work for Isaac Stolzfuts’ Journal has demonstrated over time that the consideration of my life, my art, other artworks and discourses described here helped to clarify and make possible a conceptualization of and imagery about sexuality that are not determined by the heterosexual versus homosexual dichotomy alone. One of the premises of my entire project is that there is a need to create such a body of work, one that demonstrates through critical practice that a fictionalized narrative about sexuality can be more convincing than the prevalent cultural myth about sexuality that victimizes the lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgendered person (hereafter referred to as LGBT person).*1 I cannot help but make the following observation. The slayings of Matthew Shephard in October 1998, Billy Jack Gaither in 1999, Arthur “J.R.” Warren in July, 2000, and Gwen Amber Rose Araujo in 2002 among many others, reinforce my argument that the use of outmoded classificatory systems by social, governmental, and religious institutions in the United States does denote and stigmatize sexual identities and contributes to the victimization and murder of LGBT people.*2

1 I define “critical practice” as the artist creating works based upon a reflective process that is thoroughly integrated with the productive process and that results in the construction of a personal cosmography that is present in the works of art.

2 Warren was triply stigmatized. He was gay, a black man, and had a disability.