1988 a year of discovery

Turning to Stone  30 X  53 1988

 In 1988 I was full of rage. Too many friends were disappearing from AIDS and the world was remaining impossible. Painting helped me stay civilized in a an uncivilized world. Today is December 1 2024 World AIDS DAY. the world feels more uncivilized now than in 1988, More targets have been sighted and the language of war has entered the discourse. I may have become more civilized if not more subtle in my making/ story telling but the rage is still with me. 

I can stop loving you 1988, acrylic on canvas, 20” X 20”,

Kaposia Sam 1988 30” X 58” acrylic on cardboard

Late one night in the spring of 1988 a month or so so after I had been diagnosed HIV + I was walking along Queen Street West in my hometown of Toronto having just come from the Cameron Public House when I came upon a friend sitting in a step crying. He looked up me I saw the lesions on his forehead and cheek. I pulled him up and hugged him and kissed him full on the mouth.  We didn't have a sexual relationship, i felt his body relax, He step back and rubbed his mouth with his sleeve and smiling said "Ohh Gross" we laughed. I said "Bad day" he said "yes". 

We walked back towards Spadina so he could catch the Spadina Bus back to the Annex and I walked back to my studio at Widmer and Adelaide and painted this. He passed away a few months later. That was to common an occurrence, the dying, not the kissing. He wasn't the first or the last friend i found crying.

 

Memory Game, 1988 acrylic on Masonite, 35” X 48”

Trying to remember people who are as young or younger then yourself when you have hardly known them long enough to get to know them. I can say that now since i am in my mid 60s  but when your 31 and a guy you have known for 5 years dies it's like having some one reach down your throat grab hold of your heart and pull it out. The question is how do you paint that,  

Where (Blue Crew neck) 1988, pastels and pen on Stonehenge paper 13” X 20”

When i say 5 years its more like a year or less of weekends because you live in different cities and you don't have a great long distance plan, but your both story tellers. So its the stories that stick. 

empty chair 1988 pastel on paper

The chair remains empty.

34 years ago last August this documentary about me and my family's reaction to my HIV + diagnosis aired on the CBC's program Canadian Reflections.  CineFocus Canada has made this 14 minute film available on Vimeo. I told my family about my diagnose soon after i got it in March 1988. Nearly two years later I was very proud to be the subject of this documentary and proud of my family's willingness to be in this film. Being me I couldn't resist drawing a movie poster for the Documentary.

 This is the link the documentary on Cinefocus's Vimeo page

  https://vimeo.com/cinefocus/joelewis?share=copy

I have many stories 

October 8 2024. In 1976 two men were seen kissing on the corner of Young and Bloor streets in Toronto. They were arrested and charged with "Public Indecency" in response a protest was organized, a public kiss in at the same intersection. Three man i knew at the time and / know were part of this protest Ed Jackson, and Tim McCaskell share a kiss at the corner of Yonge and Bloor Sts., as Gerald Hannon (July 10, 1944 – May 9, 2022)) (looks on. They restaged this event for the Toronto Star in 2015. In the summer of 1981 in the lower east side in Manhattan, my buddy, who became a friend Peter Sinclair ( January 23, 1955 - August 21, 1990) decided we were hungry and decided to go out and get some food, walking across 10 st to Second Ave we took each others hands. a bolt of lighting went through my body, my brain , my heart. It was one of the most exciting/ intimate/ innocent and erotic things that has ever happened to me. Looking like two guys in the cast of West Side Story which was having a revival directed by Debbie Allen that summer we must have been a sight. Even in New York City at that time seeing two guys holding hands outside of the West Village was a novelty. These days it isn't an every day sighting in downtown Toronto and went i see it I have to resist the urge to interview them. That may sound silly or strange but for me the idea of walking down the street holding another man's hand still excites me, it also saddens me, since it has been along time. Holding Peter's hand while out was instantly natural, a few years later getting Michael Kelley (February 10, 1961-December 29, 1987 ) to hold my hand in public was an battle i gave up on, I never figured out his fear of showing public intimacy but he was uncomfortable with my politically in your face artwork. That two men holding hands might still be or be seen as a political act is kind of disconcerting but it warms my heart. Never be afraid of holding someone's hand outside.