Bearman Ybor City, 22" x 30", oil on canvas, 1982. Private collection.

In order to explain the abstract nature of this painting I will have to impart a brief aside here. Bret and I were in our early twenties when we were shooting these photographs. Our boundless ideas and energy were matched only by the degree of our lack of income and, hence, lack of photographic equipment. I borrowed an antique fully-manual 35 mm Russian-made camera to shoot the Ybor City Bearman photos. We shot the series, dropped off the film, and a day later I called to find out if the prints were ready. I was told, "They're ready, but, I don't know if you want them. It looks like there's something wrong with your camera." The body of the camera was "leaking" light onto the film and creating very strange distortions on the resulting prints. This painting is a close reproduction of one of those "ruined" photographs. The figure of The Bearman is apparent--the bear hat and the side of Bret's jaw in the center of the upper-left quadrant, and his shoulder and arm in silhouette traveling from there down through the center of the painting. He is standing next to a blue painted wall which ends at an open doorway at the right of the composition. All the flares, and clouds of light--especially the beam of light ricocheting from his bear hat--are distortions caused by the "light leakage" of the functionally degenerate camera. The obscure and strangely macabre "accidental" light effects in the photos brought a metaphysical edge to The Bearman images that could not have been realized otherwise. The images of The Bearman series began as comedy/tragedy, then became existential, and ended on a surprising metaphysical note. My remarks here are largely the result of looking back on this work in retrospect. The progression of Bret and my collaboration at the time had none of the finish and polish that I am affording it now. We were young artists busily trying to "figure out" everything--as "everything" related to becoming an actor, or a visual artist.