Sometimes We Punt

Sometimes We Punt Digital Photo Collage 2026

The center point of this collage is the Aquarian Moon. It’s the age of Aquarius moving into the age of… what age are we in now? I can’t remember. Whatever that age is, it’s about the changing tides of time and history and how we make advances.

And advances are almost always followed with retreats, like waves on a beach.

It is about the nature of being alive and the limited amount of control we have over what happens in our day.

The moon is being playfully kicked by the central figure as if a soccer ball. So it is about our interaction with time, nature, our place in the world, our place within histories, context, when we are and where we are, and what we have to accept, and what we can capitalize on.

That’s what this collage is about.

That’s what this post is about.

The title of the work is “Sometimes We Punt.” That is a playful acknowledgement of when sometimes you’re in a situation where you don’t have a lot of good options, you punt.

And that punt is a moment of hope.

It is about responding to life’s idiosyncrasies. It may not always be fun, but it will always be interesting.

And that’s how I see life.

I think this is my artist statement, at least for today.

On a Gay Death

As a gay man who grew up in the Catholic tradition, the idea of last things can be anxiety producing. The church has had a spotty history on the subject.

In 1347, the bubonic plague killed half of Europe in a year. Gay men and women were certainly among those lost. They always are. And the Church that might have offered comfort had already decided they were beyond it.

In 1981, AIDS hit America, and its government looked away while a community buried itself. No funding. No urgency. No grace. Gay men died without medicine that could have saved them because the dominant culture had decided they did not deserve to live. The church called it divine retribution.

And now in 2026, the current administration and conservative Christians are moving to restrict and remove the HIV medications that are keeping people alive.

There is no other word for this. It is violence. It is immoral. It is unacceptable.

The ars moriendi — the art of dying well — was the Church’s promise to its faithful. Gay men and women are still being denied it.

In the Catholic realm, there is a sacrament for marriage. There is a sacrament for holy orders. Gays are barred from both, with no sacrament for gay Catholics. That’s not Godly.