I just returned from Tennessee exhausted, sick, sun
burnt, mosquito bitten, and thoroughly delighted. It was an amazing
trip, as my time in Tennessee always is. I’m tempted to reveal
everything here and now, but I will instead put up my diary entries
as I wrote them in my journal while staying at Ladyslipper (my farm
in Tennessee), and later at The Haven. There will be little expositions
when my journal entries need background information to make sense,
but essentially you will read it as it happened. I had dozens of wonderful
emails waiting for me when I got home, filled with appreciation for
my work – thank you so much to those who wrote for being so
encouraging to me as an artist. It means very much to me, and I will
write you as my health improves (I caught a cold) and time allows.
Being an artist is often lonely and difficult, requiring long hours
alone in the studio and struggling with technical problems and personal
insecurities, and your fantastic letters encourage me to continue.
The diary for my journey commences below.
28 March, 2006
I had just come to the conclusion that I would not,
after all, go to Tennessee, for all the usual reasons (I’m too
busy, I need to paint and should not brook any distractions), when
my friend Bobby called and wanted to know where I was. I had told
him months ago that I was going to come to Tennessee for at least
a month (he owns a farm about 5 miles from Ladyslipper, and is one
of my best friends anywhere in the world), and in the space of 10
minutes he convinced me that I would actually get more done in Tennessee
than in San Francisco, that the tranquility of the country would do
me good, and he succinctly shot down every objection I could muster,
so that in the space of a few minutes I agreed that some time at Ladyslipper
really was what I needed, and I found myself on a plane the very next
day, for a stay in Tennessee of unspecified duration.
I have only been going to Tennessee for the past three years –
I had never set foot in the state before that. But a friend I met
while living in New Orleans (in my old days as a gogo dancer at a
New Orleans gay bar) told me about a wonderful community of hippies,
farmers, and progressive queers living at a commune called The Haven
in the mountains of Tennessee, and curious, we drove up to assuage
our curiosity. I immediately connected with a great many of the people
there, and I found myself visiting regularly almost immediately. Within
a year I had brought my twin brother Marcel out to visit as well,
and with some money inherited from our Grandmother we bought Ladyslipper,
our farm nestled in a hollow a 45 minute walk through the forest from
The Haven. Ladyslipper reminded us immidiatly of our childhood, with
summers spent at my Grandmother’s hacienda outside Guadalajara,
riding horses and skinny dipping in the river with my cousins and
uncles, and we proceeded to turn the house into a working farm like
what we remembered from childhood, albeit on a much smaller scale
(my grandmother’s hacienda El Dibujero was vast, much dwarfing
the 400 acres of Ladyslipper). We constructed a new barn right away,
since horses were our first priority for our new country life, and
last year everything was finally ready for the carriage and two horses,
allowing us to travel by horse or carriage through the forest between
The Haven, Ladyslipper, and the houses and farms of our friends and
neighbors. Last year we purchased Incitatus, and shortly thereafter
Bucephalus, our beloved and sweet-natured horses.
Of course, neither Marcel nor I live in the country full time –
we are both much to consumed with our various art forms to do that,
and we are fundamentally city boys as well. In fact, we spend only
about a fourth of our year on the farm – we both hate the cold
weather in the Winter (both being used to the tropical climes of Mexico
and LA), and I can’t stand all the bugs in the summer. So we
usually have a local boy living at Ladyslipper who keeps the place
up, feeds the chickens and horses (and eventually, the goats, rabbits,
and cow we are planning on aquiring as well), who lives there for
free and is paid a small fee to cover his food and expenses. The responsibilities
really are not all that pressing, since we don’t raise crops
and the animals require only a few hours a day of care, so there is
plenty of time for our caretakers to pursue other interests. The last
boy was there since the beginning, but he moved to Chicago rather
abruptly late last fall and hasn’t been heard from since. Marcel
made an emergency trip to Ladyslipper to sort the situation out, and
a local boy, Clover, the son of a neighbor who had just turned 19,
moved in to keep the place up. His family are religious, but open
minded, and have always been very sweet to Marcel and myself. They
raise horses and run a farm themselves, and I had seen Clover with
his horse before, so I knew, when Marcel told me about the arrangement,
that it would be perfect. We have known Clover since he was 16, he
is handsome, shy, soft spoken, and very artistic (he is a writer and
poet) and I am happy that he will be a more intimate part of our lives.
These two photos are both of Clover, taken when he
was around 17. The one above was taken during a visit to his parent's
house, and the one below is of him standing on the porch at Ladyslipper,
early in the spring.
Bobby picked me up from the airport at Nashville after an uneventful
flight, and I am spending the night at his farm, Weemaway, and tomorrow
will see Ladyslipper for the first time in months. It is still winter
here, even though late in the year – the trees are all dead,
and I can imagine with great tranquility the view from my front porch,
the icy river and the slender, lacy branches of the intermingled trees,
and feel already relaxed and refreshed, as though the drama of the
city lies months behind me and the encircling arms of my little hollow
have wrapped me already in their still embrace.