.: 2010 What A Year!

Friday, December 31, 2010

2010 What A Year!

1. I finally passed that massive kidney stone that took almost six months... Ugh! I Ain't stretching the truth it worse than having a baby, Labor does not take 6 months!

2. My planned exhibit of Dance Through Life started, stopped and is still waiting to happen, still the promotional image was on point and it will happen in 2011!

3. My photo of Austin Clarke was published in the back of the American version of More via Publishing giant Harper Colins. A new book is in the cards this year!

4. Could be the highlight of my year, My first wedding shoot... Glenroy & Anthony! Simply Amazing! I told my sister no to her wedding as its too stressful, but this was too important to say no to!

5. Otumba Abi's Birthday! I was in Naija heaven.

6. I'm with Oprah..This is my favorite thing! (no you my audience are not getting one;-)

7. My one man show FIERCE! went off with out a hook!, Actually 65 of them! Just in time for Hotter Than July in Detroit! Thanks Affirmations!

8. Travoy in the Flesh launches... Travoy gives me great creative opportunities!

9. Cedric! The smile says it all! Can't wait to work with him again!

10. The Javon & Mardi shoot at Hanlan's point was amazing! Perhaps ground breaking.

11. MY BFF Nigel and I at one of Polly's parties!

12. I turned the big 50 this year! Still young at heart, this is the key to life!

14. This was a big year for Kashedance, this is the promo shot for the year! Thanks Kevin!

15. Well come to the new Sony Centre! Its second grand opening in 50 years!

16. YES! I was in the middle of the G20 mess.. I get the rush war correspondence get!

17. The Almighty Ball 2! The second amazing year for this AMAZING Ball!

18. DJ Blackcat...too Kewl for School! I've had more fun creating party promotions you just don't know, this guy gets me and lets me loose creatively! Much love!

19. Caribana and the Tribal Ball! And even better my girl Lasaunji was there for it all! A perfect weekend!

20. Temi and I at Pride!

21. Omari... Whew! awesome up and coming model! Thanks Leo!

22. Tavon, Brian and Jermaiine are my new core of Aqua Noir! Its like modeling in 3 dimensions!

23. Finally success at the Youth Line Auction! My piece made some great loot for a great cause!

24. Montrice gets a stone! He will always be remembered in our hearts!

25. I have a studio! Small but flexible (check out photo 26!)

26. Alistair in full flight in the new studio!

27. Speaking of Alistair, we both made the poster for Soulful Messiah and the Globe and Mail Arts section! What a way to cap off a year!

There were so many great moments for me this year... great new models, like Curtis, Craig, Travis , Tavon!

2010 has been full of photographic blessings both new and old, a special shout out to Javon and Mardi who have also been parental supporters! If I have missed anyone... let me know... I am blessed by many! I look forward to 2011!

Note: All images and text (not specified) is copyrighted by Christopher Cushman. This site does not specify or denote the sexual orientation of any model and as such please post your comments accordingly.

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The Dance Through Life Project

Photograph project dedicated to capture the Art of Dance within the parameters of everyday life. The project hopes to capture the innate relationships between dance and everyday life. Images of dance performed in non-traditional locales hopefully demystifying dance as being inaccessible and drawing the obvious metaphor that while all can not express life with such movement and physicality, we all love with our own signature grace. Therefore we all dance.

Order your copy today by clicking on the books above!

Through New Eyes: The Photography of Christopher Cushman by Rinaldo Walcott

The Black male body remains an enigma despite its over representation in the public sphere. The dominance of hip hop culture globally, driven in part, but not exclusively by the innovative sounds of rap music have made Black men a standard by which Black men and other men judge themselves in contemporary culture. However, there is a paradox, because despite the prevalence of hip-hop’s popular global impact, Black men are also still some of the most despised men in Western culture. Stereotypes of criminality, disease and danger still abound and organize Black men’s lives, even within hip hop culture. Thus representations of Black men tend to be much more restricted, than open-ended. The struggle to bring Black men into complex open-ended representations has been an on-going historical struggle. One of the most potent forms of representation in the last one hundred and fifty years has been the photograph. Photography has offered the promise to represent the real in a manner that has both seduce its viewers and baffled them with its artifice. Black male photographic representations in the last half of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first have promised to rescue Black men from the confines of mis-representation and stereotype. One of the most difficult and complicated circumstances of Black male representations has been in the realm of representing their sexuality. Black men’s sexuality is still over-burdened by a perceived threat and danger, especially now in the hyped-up era of the downlow. Then along comes Cushman. I first hear of Christopher Cushman’s photography from my boyfriend. He told me of a guy who was taking photographs of black nudes based upon how they wanted themselves to be seen, not how he posed them as his models. When I met Cushman he confirmed that he did indeed work from the models’ suggested posed and not impose his own. The idea is a great one because it allows the models agency in choosing what they believe to be an adequate representation of who they are. While it is now true that in contemporary culture subjects have learned to play for the camera, offering us artifice on command, this artifice can be understood as exposing inner senses of self and being. Cushman’s photography captures and reveals those inner desires. Look at me, many of the models seems to say. But look at me anew, is also what they seem to project and insist on. Cushman’s eye lavishes these Black male bodies with glimmers of light revealing their nuance personalities. While most of the men are naked their individuality comes clearly through. And yet, their eyes too reveal that they belong to a community, a family and possess desires, fantasies and needs. In these photographs, as viewers we are given new eyes to see beyond our inner voyeur. Cushman channels, Robert Mapplethorpe, Rotimi Fani-Kayode and many other artists, commercial and amateur photographers who seek to rescue the Black male body from the disastrous depths of mis-representation, and who almost always fall short. The conversations that his models create between his work and others whether unconscious or not reveal the profound influence of the image in our time. However, in Cushman’s eyes the Black male body is not being rescued, instead it stands on a self-made pedestal, not arrogantly announcing its existence but coolly (its signature) singing its own praisesong as swathes of light and behind the camera love washes over it. In each moment a small but significant revelation is made. Each revelation offers us the opportunity of an Epiphany – to think a thought about a Black man that we have not thought before. Professor Rinaldo Walcott is a cultural critic and Canada Research Chair of Social Justice and Cultural Studies at the University of Toronto. He lives and writes in Toronto.

FIERCE! Being Black, Being Gay in America

"What Chris has done with this important collection of images, Fierce: Being Black, Being Gay in America, A Photographic Essay, is to seek, lift, and affirm the identity and visibility of men-who love-men and express it in many ways. His photographs display Midwest American men from the outlandish and flamboyant, to the subdued and subtle. You’d think these were “ladies who lunch;” muscular men dressed for the “Park” in lace, and floppy hats to give effect for all to see. Brothers connecting in places we know are safe, such as our nightclubs, the discos, and special events targeting our interests.

The importance of Fierce is paramount: all men are created equal, and share a space on earth. These portraits of men have to be recognized as God’s beauty and not His damnation. Time will thank those who were strong and dared enough to express themselves for all to see and appreciate in a manner that’s loving and creative. Time will also thank us for not living in a paranoid state of mind, and afraid of our own shadows. Remember, this cluster of work isn’t Robert Mappelthope’s approach to black imagery, but the approach of documenting men as they wanted to be seen: with and without sexual stimulation, for shock value."

Curtis A. Lipscomb
Executive Director Kick – The Agency for L-G-B-T African-Americans
Detroit Michigan / 2005
www.e-kick.com