This is my art.

The picture

Quick question before the spicy part. You're 18 or older, right? (wink) MDNI: minors do not interact. Love you, mean it.

I'm 18 or older Not yet. Take me somewhere cozy.

This is the cover. It's the first time I really looked at myself and was proud.

I took it in the mirror, zoomed all the way in. Then I went back through the shots that day and this one stuck. I was proud of the way I looked and proud of what I was representing: my body, and the gear that said who I am, and the things I usually give away without being asked.

I cropped it the way I did on purpose. As a photographer, and as a guy who always felt like he was on the outside, present but not belonging, this is exactly what that feels like. My head isn't in it. But I'm the one holding the phone. I decide what gets seen.

You never see the face, and you still get almost all of who he is. You can guess he's queer just from looking. That's the whole project in one frame: not in the picture, running the picture, and finally choosing to show it.

Why this picture is everywhere

You're going to see it all over this site, on purpose. It's the cover and the thesis. I spent years scattering myself across different boxes and containers, and I'm not doing that here, so the one picture follows you through. You'll see it in pieces, because that's how I got given away: a crop here, a corner there. Put them together and you get all of me. And I'll flip it for every identity I've been through, a linocut here, a different ground there. Same frame, a different me each time, and every one of them is still me.

It's not decoration and it's not a thirst trap with a business card stapled to it. It's proof I'm not afraid to show who I am, and the invitation for you not to be afraid either.

44 years of ghosts and legacies

I'm 44. I want to celebrate that, and the Brewers, and myself, all at once.

I want to celebrate 44 years of ghosts and legacies at hotels and bars and murals and churches, and every other place we've all inherited and inhabited together. We swirled past each other, briefly, at the end of a bar cheering on a home run. We stood in the shadow of a church steeple. We bowed at each other's knees while we peeked around corners for passersby. That's my Milwaukee. I don't want to hide it.

I spent an entire life investigating myself when I didn't feel like anyone was curious about me. The day the Brewers went to the World Series is the day I started trusting my voice. I'm not scared anymore. I'm not afraid to tell my stories.

Everything in one spot

Twenty-five years of writing, drawing and photographs have been scattered across LiveJournal, DeviantArt, old Facebook and phones. That's a big part of why I'm doing this: to put all of it in one place, with my name on it and the original dates left alone.

House rules: original dates and captions stay, and context goes in a note, never a rewrite. Other people's names and faces come out unless they said yes. Family records stay private until the family says otherwise.

What I actually do

I book trips. I tell stories. I tell it like it is.

How it funds itself

Right now the services fund the art. The only thing I'm focused on is putting out my words and hoping people are interested in my services, and someday I hope the words are what fund the services.

Stories first. Services at the door. Nobody is tricked into a sales pitch, and nobody has to sit through one to get to the stories.

The open door

This is a community collaboration, not a monologue.

I want other people to tell their stories the way I'm telling mine: the ones you've only ever told yourself in the dark, the ones you always wanted to tell somebody and were too scared to. If you've got one, bring it. If you only have a corner of it, bring that. If it was a church, a bar, a mural, a hotel hallway, a ballgame, a stranger, a ghost, it belongs here.

The furnace rules

1. Say it straight. Fierce kindness, not Midwest nice.
2. Be seen on your terms.
3. Crop yourself in. You don't need a face to be recognized.
4. Hold the camera. Control the frame.
5. Put it all in one place.
6. Tell it anyway.
7. Photograph what you've inherited.
8. Plan the trip for the person.
9. Stand in the shadow of the steeple at least once.
10. Cheer at the end of the bar. Strangers make the best home runs.

The book

The book will be thick, and full of trinkets and bells and whistles: furnace tips, field guides, a rack of zines, the flips of every identity I've been through, the Brewers pages, the Journeys pages, and room for every story you send. It's a memoir out loud. I'm publishing it and editing it myself. I just don't have an ISBN.

Who is Dopamine Furnace? He's you, if you've ever been present but not belonging. He's the one who finally picked up the camera. All of me is all of me. Come find me here.

Fall Dude Noir 2024

The Dudoir shoot was one of the first times I truly felt like myself again.

PG-13 The teaser is open. R Mostly me in my underwear, sometimes suggestive, and the nude frames 18+ both sit behind the tap in the gallery. Every frame wears its rating.

I have no idea what I look like. So the only thing I know of myself is what I've made myself believe through the pictures I've taken of myself.

I've been surrounded by people who really never take pictures of me. These were all taken in September of 2024, the month before I told my ex I needed to separate. It was my first time taking a trip away from him.

This was when I was really first starting to come into my identity and sexuality again, and I felt probably the sexiest I ever had in my entire life. I've been dreaming of finding a home for these, and this is the only place I can think of. How many people really embrace the art of boudoir? Dudeoir.

• PG-13

Open the Dudoir gallery