Embracing LGBTQ Artists

➺FROM THE MOMENT my aunt taught me how to sketch fl owers using her linear technique at age 5, I developed a love and appreciation for the arts. Soon after, I was sketching images seen on comic book covers so well, friends and family assumed they were traced. If I could do things over again, I would have selected a career in the arts or creativity sooner.

In work study while in college, I had a coveted job as a caretaker of the Hartnett

Galley located within the

Wilson Commons Student

Center at the University of

Rochester, where I studied economics and political science. It was there I was exposed to a wide range of artists, yet I was not exposed to any LGBTQ artists. If I was, I did not know it.

I went to college in the mid-to-late 1980’s during the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis – a time when we felt safer hiding our identities rather than outwardly exploring them. In 1990, I moved to Washington DC to study law and came across a wonderful LGBTQ bookstore in Dupont Circle called Kramerbooks & Afterwords.

Founded in 1976, the same year as Wilson Commons, Kramers is a true DC landmark. Among the many authors and book titles I discovered there were Robert Mapplethorpe’s homoerotic photography coff ee table books, and the iconic homoerotic art of Tom of Finland.

A whole new world of art opened up for me.

I began to notice LGBTQ artists in every medium. Of course, I knew of famous gay musicians such as Elton John, Boy George, and David

Bowie. But I did not know Steven Morrissey of

The Smiths and Freddie Mercury of Queen were gay. I just didn’t know, OK? As time went on, I began learning more of our LGBTQ contributors to the arts. Artists like David Wojnarowicz, an

American multimedia artist who contributed to movements and styles such as Queer Art, Identity Politics, and East Village Art. Like Catalan architect and designer, Antoni Gaudi, who specialized in Art Nouveau and Modern Architecture. Like Serbian-American artist Marina Abramovic, famous for her contributions to Performance Art, Feminist Art, and Body Art. Today, the conceptual art of Andy Warhol and the photography of Annie Leibovitz are deemed iconic by the mainstream. Yet there are many more LGBTQ artists contributing to every medium such as theater, film, biographies, fine arts, modern arts, and fashion that are not well known, by either the LGBTQ community or mainstream.

It is the mission of this magazine to build bridges between the LGBTQ community and the mainstream, and to bring awareness of our LGBTQ cultural and social identity. We profi le the work of Broadway producer Marc Levine, the fi lmmaking of Indrani Pai-Chaudhuri, the fashion design of Max Brava, and the photography of Magnus Hastings, among others, so that our LGBTQ and mainstream audiences gain exposure to LGBTQ artists, even if they already knew who they were but did not know they identify as LGBTQ. By providing this platform, perhaps a child learning to draw fl owers through a linear technique, or a university student working his or her way through college in an art gallery would have LGBTQ artists as role models to identify with, rather than be mystifi ed by.

john@sotomayormedia.com

Portrait painted by Brazilian artist, Paulo Cesar Barros Pimenta

John Sotomayor

Publisher and Editor-in-Chief