Partners West and East

COUPLE ON GOLONDRINA ST., Los Angeles, 1976
Black and white photograph created with 120 film, 20” x 20”, Artist’s Collection

I lived in Los Angeles in the mid-1970s. Most everyone I met seemed to be aspiring Hollywood actors. In this image, two young theatre students visited me in my home on Golondrina Street. Although our agenda was to talk about professional opportunities in theatre, they veered quickly into their plans to sell a screenplay about their lives. As actors, they were more than happy to wear my masks, and to enact their version of a young reality-TV couple. When I look at them now, they seem clownish in the masks—a grin too wide, a frown too pronounced. I also notice the painting behind the couch, which I always liked, a kind of modernist cityscape. I wonder what became of that painting. And I wonder whether the couple ever found their 15 minutes of fame.

A QUIET LUNCH, New York City, 2023
Digital color print, 20” x 20”,
Artist’s Collection

In contrast to the previous image, this one features a young, queer married couple in New York City. They’re both drama therapists who use their clinical skills to help people navigate trauma and difference. They’re highly theatrical in their daily lives, and masks are no strangers to them. They sit under a pair of antlers in a colonial style New York restaurant. The painting on the wall suggests another time, another place. I feel closer to this couple than the other one. Their masks are natural extensions of their personalities. They’re content in being who they are by being who they are not. I want to be like them.