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My painting, “Coming Out at the Last Supper,” to be part of exhibition at L’Antiquaille in Lyon, France

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My painting, “”Coming Out at the Last Supper,” will be part of an exhibition happening in July at L’Antiquaille, a museum of Christianity in Lyon, France, as part of a larger exhibition put on by the Archdiocese of Lyon on depictions of the Last Supper in Art. My painting is in the final section of the exhibition labeled “Blasphemy? Maybe not.” This part of the exhibition asks viewers to think about how queer artists are exploring aspects of inclusion in the ministry of Christ.

I am SO honored to be part of this exhibition. My painting was found online by the person curating the exhibition and I was asked in 2025 if I wanted to be a part of it.

Many artists have depicted the Last Supper. It’s a popular tableau. It’s also been a part of marketing–since it is so famous. Anytime you have everyone on one side of a table, you have the chance of making the tableau. Try it at home!

It’s easy to do, even accidentally. In the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, there was a controversial staging of a part of the Opening Ceremonies, where drag performers, enjoying a Dionysian feast on stage, were criticized for (possibly) forming/ staging the famous tableau from Da Vinci’s Last Supper. This time, perhaps because it was queer people performing, it was seen as mocking Christianity. The performers said they were trying to talk about the wide inclusion celebrated in France and Paris specifically, that Paris invites everyone to enjoy the feast. So there was a question over how you can depict the Last Supper. I don’t know that there’s a direct correlation to this exhibition. But it is food for thought.

I painted “Coming Out at the Last Supper” in early 2024 as part of a Lenten and Eastertide group of paintings depicting Christian events in the life of Christ before and after Easter through a queer lens. Queer being a WIDE lens meaning rethinking all sorts of things—

I painted Jesus hugging Mary when SO many people believe Christ wouldn’t allow her to hug him.

I painted Jesus appearing to the disciples to show them his hand but I have the light coming through the hole in his hand.

I painted the Road to Emmaus in the style of Mary Engelbright.

I had fun.

Coming Out at the Last Supper

I had heard so many stories of queer people who come out to their families at dinners, often BIG dinners, like Easter dinner, Christmas, Thanksgiving dinners. It makes sense to do that, in some ways. All of your family is together in one place–something rare as you get older. You have something you want to share with them that is very personal and important. It is a beautiful thing you want to share. No one “comes out” to shock their families and friends–and they certainly don’t WANT negative reactions. They come out to share who they are. To reveal, to become closer.

We share all sorts of personal announcements at dinners, don’t we? “We’re having a baby!” or “We’re getting married!” or “I just had something published in the New York Times!” We may have grown up with lots of great moments at the dinner table telling our parents how school is going, what kind of discoveries we made today around the neighborhood. So it’s natural to share at the dinner table.

Jesus also shared at the dinner table. The Last Supper was full of revelation for him—“someone will betray me” and oh, Judas, it’s you. Earlier he came out as the Son of God. He teaches them here how to make dinner into a way to honor their relationship with him.

Judas abruptly leaves Jesus’ last supper, called out by Jesus as a betrayer, and then Jesus is arrested later.

Some people come out to their families and are deeply supported by them. However, this is a recent development over the last thirty years.

Many queer people who came out at the dinner table in earlier decades were truly shocked to find out how upset their families were. Often it was a “Last Supper” for them too.

I thought there was some interesting parallels to Jesus coming out as the Son of God— a blasphemy that he was crucified for– and queer people coming out as queer. Both are about identity. Who are you? Can those who are closest to you understand who you really are?

Details of the exhibition are still forthcoming so I will tell you more when I know!

Anyway, I’m excited about the exhibition. If you are in France in July or afterwards (I’m not sure how long the exhibition will be up), and you get to see this exhibition, would you snap a picture of yourself with the painting? I would love that.

Bear Me Safely Over

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Bear Me Safely Over

In my new job, as a tarot reader (spiritual life coach), I meet a lot of people who have barely survived evangelical churches. A lot. Many of them are queer like me. Others may not be queer, but they too got judged, hurt, ostracized, and/or punished for years by a church.

Our shop, The Sacred Owl and Salt Room is a sanctuary and a destination for people in East Tennessee who want to still connect to their spirituality and their faith but they don’t know if a church and steeple should come with that faith. And that’s completely understandable. Who goes back to the places that hurt you? Or even the ones that look like those places? However, something is still calling to them, and they don’t know what it is, but they want to hold on to part of the faith they were brought up in, but leave behind the exclusion, the judgement.

They want a God who is strong enough to hold them, but loving enough not to hurt them.

They want this for themselves and they want this for their kids.

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Bearing Up the Church

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Queer and Trans folks have always been a part of churches, supporting them and bearing them up. You just might not have known who they were. Many chose to stay quiet and serve the church–a job they love–rather than risk that good work by coming out.

I remember once, in 2004 or 2005, when I had returned to the US after discovering I was gay, I was dating the pianist for an MCC church in Lubbock (a church that was created by and for and served the LGBTQ community and anyone else who wanted to participate and enjoy). He took me to a secret Saturday Board Game Day for queer men. These were friends of Jay, and met in someone’s home. They were all in their 50s and 60s, playing Snakes and Ladders on folding tables, laughing and calling each other “old queens.” I felt accepted and loved and pulled in to this “secret” meeting. Why was it secret?

They were the music ministers, pianists or organists at local churches in the Lubbock area. They were all closeted, except for the man who brought me there, and they told me stories of “little old women” who loved them because they reminded them of Liberace. And they would laugh, but you could tell that they loved being loved— who doesn’t?

But they couldn’t come out. They were beloved by their churches—but they were certain it would all disappear if they came out.

Every straight teen boy could stand up in a congregation and announce that he was engaged to the girl sitting beside him and the church would cheer for them, but for these men, they couldn’t talk about who they loved, and if they did, they had to mask. It was necessary to keep their jobs, homes, livelihoods, friends, all of it. Coming out in a church in Lubbock, you could just as easily trip on a snake and be sent to the bottom of the board.

Even in these conditions, in George W Bush’s America of 2004, 2005, a re-election won by scaring conservatives about gay marriage, these men, these “old queens” were happy to be here in this house, free to be themselves, playing games and reassuring each other that they were not alone. Their energy and joy was their survival and rebellion. They continued to serve their congregations that same energy and joy–and they were responsible for the feelings people had coming to church. Their joy translated into joy for everyone who came; their love for the music or the arts or the theatre had a ripple effect on everyone. They bear up the souls of every member of the congregation. I celebrate them today and hope that in the future they can all be fully loved and celebrated and affirmed for who they are in every aspect.

The song on the rainbow music here is “Be Still My Soul, the Lord is on your side. Bear patiently, the cross of grief or pain.” Let’s celebrate and send love and support to all those who love to give us joy through music and the arts in our churches (and in other areas) even when they have to erase part of themselves to survive in their churches. I hope there is a secret Board Game Saturday in all the cities for all of them.

_________________

“Bearing Up the Church,” Jerome Stueart, (11 x 15) watercolor, mixed media on paper. Part of my Meditations on the Bears in the Baptist Hymnal series. Prints available at Redbubble.

Geist: The Dead Viking My Birthmother Gave Me

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My Birthmother, Laurie, as a spiritualist on stage, listening to the dead who are trying to give her messages to relay to those in the audience. Part of the illustrations for the essay.

My essay, “The Dead Viking My Birthmother Gave Me,” is up over at GEIST Magazine online. It’s an essay about adoption, being queer, being lonely in the Yukon during Winter, and spiritual differences between a birthmother and son that include what one might do with a hunky centuries-old Viking spirit guide, and it’s all true from what I can remember.

Some of the illustrations that were published in the article that I did weren’t able to be put in the online version because of technical difficulties, so here they are:

An armor-clad Viking sits in a darkened bedroom of my 60-year-old birthmom, keeping watch while she sleeps.

I hope you enjoy the essay!

The Gulf of Empathy

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“The Gulf of Empathy,” (11 x 15) watercolor, mixed media on paper.*

Protect others. Speak Out. Use your art and voice when you can.

Thank you, Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, for taking that opportunity to simply ask for mercy. Your words reverberated around the world and spoke to every heart, and especially strengthened mine and others’ hearts in queer communities and queer ally communities.

We pray every heart will hear the call to mercy.

For more about this painting and how and why it was made, read this essay

*due to requests and responses to this image, prints are available through Squarespace/ FinerWorks

*if you want t-shirts, mugs, buttons, please go to the Redbubble Site

Thank you for supporting a struggling queer artist! Many of you bought me a coffee at my ko-fi.com/bearnabas. Thank you!

Great Queer Fantasy and Science Fiction

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I moderated a “Queering Fantasy” panel at the virtual 2020 World Fantasy convention that looked at the connection between adding queer characters and queering the fantasy tropes themselves.

How do you queer Fantasy and Fantasy tropes? Is it dropping in a queer character into an otherwise fantastical plot? Slipping in a positive queer romance? Or is it dismantling, changing, altering, and questioning the tropes that have been present in Fantasy for decades? Is it queering the way power is distributed in a society, or queering character goals and story endings? Does it touch how we build a Fantasy economy, a government, a landscape, a culture? We would say it includes all these things. Queer characters invite complete queer make-overs of Fantasy tropes. We’re here to discuss that– discussing the contributions of LGBTQIAA2S+ authors to the field; we want to give you plenty to look at and consider. Heck, we might, at the end, even compose multiple queer “I want” Disney songs for the Fantasy stories we want to create or see created–ya never know. Whether you’re an activist or an ally, we welcome you.

We had a great time–and if you went to WFC2020 and didn’t see it, it is recorded. We could have talked another hour on these themes. Part of our takeaway for guests to that panel was a list of great queer fantasy and science fiction. We placed it in the Session Pages section of WFC 2020’s online presence at Crowdcast. We had originally just been thinking of fantasy, and then it expanded to include SF and then horror, steampunk, etc…. but here is the list (with a few more edits by me).

Caveats: This is NOT a list of every queer story out there–by no means–but was a list that four panelists Corry L. Lee, Cheryl Morgan, S. Qiouyi Lu and I could come up with over a couple of days to hand to people when they got done with the panel.

It’s intended to be a starter list–a recommended reading list. These are books we’ve read and recommended. It is limited by our personal reading. It will have holes (not enough of us read YA and MG) and S. didn’t get a chance to put aer complete list with ours, but I hope ae does and then I will add aers to the rest.

I chose representative covers with complete randomness, not as any statement.

There are many great reading lists for queer books–this one is ours.

So, from the “Queering Fantasy” panel at the 2020 World Fantasy Convention, a list of their recommended reading:

Great Queer Fantasy and Science Fiction

Feel free to circulate and add your own–or let me know! Let it grow, let it grow, let it grow!

Recommendations by Corry L. Lee, Cheryl Morgan, Jerome Stueart, and S. Qiouyi Lu

Key: SF = Science Fiction, F = Fantasy, YA = Young Adult, MG = Middle Grade, H = Horror, SP = Steampunk, SH = Superheroes, GN = Graphic Novel SS = short story collection

Adult:

  • Ninefox Gambit – Yoon Ha Lee (SF)
  • The City We Became – N.K. Jemisin (F/contemporary)
  • The Perfect Assassin – K.A. Doore (F)
  • Raven Tower – Ann Leckie (F)
  • Ancillary Justice – Ann Leckie (SF)
  • A Memory Called Empire – Arkady Martine (SF)
  • The Future of Another Timeline – Annalee Newitz (SF, Alt Hist)
  • Weave the Lightning – Corry L. Lee (F, novel)
  • Dhalgren — Samuel R. Delany (SF, novel)
  • Stars in my Pocket Like Grains of Sand — Samuel R. Delany (SF, novel)
  • The Affair of the Mysterious Letter – Alexis Hall (F)
  • Will Do Magic for Small Change – Andrea Hairston (F/contemporary)
  • Silver in the Wood & The Drowned Country – Emily Tesh (F, novellas)
  • The Seep – Chana Porter (SF, novella)
  • Swordspoint – Ellen Kushner (F, novel and the whole Riverside series)
  • The Outremer Series – Chaz Brenchley (F, 6 novels in US, 3 fat novels in UK)
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Why Pilgrimages Can Be Good For Us: My Pilgrimage to the Brandywine Museum of Art

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Me geeking out at the NC Wyeth Exhibit at Brandywine Museum in Chadd’s Ford, PA.

I have been a big admirer of the works of NC Wyeth for a long time. You might remember his illustrations from your favorite classic YA adventure novels (now assigned texts in college 19th Century and turn of the century literature classes), books like Treasure Island, Robinson Crusoe, Last of the Mohicans, A Boy’s King Arthur, Kidnapped, The Yearling, Robin Hood, The Deerslayer, etc. Very popular books in the early 20th Century with themes and storylines still made into movies today.

I loved his style! BIG color, lots of drama, action, adventure, stunning landscapes. I wished I could paint like that ever since I saw my first Wyeth up close at Texas Tech University. But I was a cartoonist at the time, and an occasional portrait artist, and I was working towards a PhD in Creative Writing. I wasn’t thinking of myself as an Artist, nor was I think of myself as an Artist who was going to study Wyeth.

As a gay man, growing up so Other from other boys, I had a peculiar relationship with the World of Boys and Men (which I will write about more in a later post) and that was a world that belonged to Wyeth as well. I had felt excluded for a long time from that world, and made up for it by being in other worlds. But I lingered outside the borders often and looked in at Things Which Were Not For Me.

So I pursued writing and teaching as a career, making art wait.

But in the last few years, my teaching situation changed, and it was difficult to find work as an adjunct teacher. I also continued to almost make it in the job market for tenure track positions. So i decided to make a change in my life–to build my art career–because I needed the money, a new source of income, and my art had waited long enough.

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“Postlude to the Afternoon of a Faun” is finalist for Eugie Foster Memorial Award

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Very happy and honored to tell you that my novelette, “Postlude to the Afternoon of a Faun” originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (Mar/Apr 2019) is a finalist for the 2020 Eugie Foster Memorial Award!

The Eugie Foster Memorial Award for Short Fiction (or Eugie Award) celebrates the best in innovative fiction. This annual award is presented at Dragon Con, the nation’s largest fan-run convention. Starting with the 2020, we will add a video presentation of the award online, along with a reading of a section of each finalist.


The Eugie Award honors stories that are irreplaceable, that inspire, enlighten, and entertain. We will be looking for stories that are beautiful, thoughtful, and passionate, and change us and the field. The recipient is a story that is unique and will become essential to speculative fiction readers.

—from the Eugie Award website http://www.eugiefoster.com/eugieaward

You can learn on the website what a wonderful writer and person Eugie Foster was, and about her legacy. I’m deeply honored to be on a list recognized by those associated with her.

Four other writers are also featured with their stories:

“A Civilization Dreams of Absolutely Nothing” by Thoraiya Dyer (Analog Science Fiction and Fact)

“For He Can Creep” by Siobhan Carroll (Tor.com)

“The House Wins in the End” by L Chan (The Dark)

“Love in the Time of Immuno-Sharing” by Andy Dudak (Analog Science Fiction and Fact)

–http://www.eugiefoster.com/eugieaward

I’ve had a wonderful two days just telling people that I became a finalist and receiving so much positive feedback. I kinda feel that being a finalist with all these cool authors and stories is its own reward! It’s really filled my soul with love in this very tumultuous time.

There are still many changes to make in the world. We will make them! Today, it was nice to feel loved.

PS. Yes that is my illustration for the story. It was something created way after the story was accepted and in print… but it was fun to doodle.

The Further Adventures of Yukon Cornelius

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Today I want to share with you work that I completed while at the Columbus College of Art and Design, and which would have been part of the Columbus Arts Festival 2020 in June (but WILL be part of the festival in 2021!)

I fell in love late in life with a character from a Christmas special: Yukon Cornelius, created by Romeo Muller as part of the 1964 Rankin/Bass production of “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer”–a stop motion special that is shown every Christmas. You might recognize the character:

Burly, positive, full of helpful asides “Bumbles Bounce!” and “the fog is as thick as peanut butter!”–Yukon helps our heroes realize their dreams by a) saving them from the Abominable Snowmonster, b) taking them to the Island of Misfit Toys to carry a message to Santa to come get these toys and pair them up with kids and c) reforming said Abominable Snowmonster and making him tame, and cool for Christmas Parties.

***

I don’t know why Yukon stayed with me. It might be that I went to live in the Yukon for nearly 10 years. I mushed some dogs (tbh, only as a one-day fun thing in Inuvik, NWT–though I attended and watched the Yukon Quest as much as I could), and spent time out in the wilderness. But I also lived in the great city of Whitehorse being a friend and misfit to a lot of other friends and misfits, who are also great musicians, artists, talented amazing people.

undefined Maybe it was that Yukon was very burly, and I was attracted to him, or even attracted to the kind of man he represented–a big “bear”. He seemed like a better version of a male hero than I had previously encountered. Though he had a gun, I don’t think he ever shot it. He was practical, helpful, encouraging. He had a lot of knowledge about Abominable Snowmonsters! And he was much more interested in saving people than in killing monsters. In the end, because Bumbles bounce!–Yukon and Bumble somehow come to an understanding. Bumble is just another misfit that needs to find his right place… and he does, next to the Christmas tree.

In another post, I will tell you more about that Queering the Hero journey I made–and continue to make. But here are my paintings, extrapolating three things:

  1. Yukon Cornelius could be gay. People have commented before on the queer undertones of the show–read the articles here from Vulture, and KQED and in 2019 The New York Times opinion page—- about themes of bullying, about being different, about being rejected, about finding acceptance for your unique qualities. Romeo Muller was himself gay. It’s not a stretch to see the queercoding in the show. Making Yukon Cornelius gay is not a stretch either, since he doesn’t make mention of a wife, and reads as what we would call a “bear” today–a burly, bearded, slightly overweight, slightly hyper-masculine man.
  2. Yukon has a way of charming beasts. His expert past knowledge of the Abominable Snowmonster speaks to prior run-ins with “Bumble”—and then he is able to tame and speak to the Bumble (who miraculously grows back his teeth in the final few minutes of the special!)
  3. Yukon deserved more of an adventurous life.

So, I created that life for him–and for me. The copyright on characters from this movie had a misprint in it, making all characters in public domain (outside of Rudolph who had prior copyright). So I adopted Yukon as my hero and gave him a life of meeting cryptids (Bigfoot, Mothman, sea monsters, etc.) Using acrylic and myself as a reluctant model–or at times a stand-in, I painted these paintings. (side note: I’d planned to have several cooler guys than me become Yukon for these paintings–but planning photo shoots was not easy.)

So if you’ve always wanted a rollicking adventuresome gay hero, I offer you Yukon Cornelius–rescuing, negotiating, protecting, singing, reading, allowing himself to be loved.

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Defining What Netflix Will Be, or Eight Reasons to Give Sense8 a full 3rd Season

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19477719_10155330533657095_1420082545618168163_oAs most people know, on June 1st, Netflix decided not to renew Sense8.  Fans of the Wachowski Sisters + J Michael Straczynski show, a show that weaves a global narrative to tell a very human story of eight people sharing their minds, knowledge, and empathy, were devastated that the story would not have a third season.  Many knew that it only had one more season of story, but Netflix decided not to renew.  Then the fanbase rallied and wrote and tweeted and called out! and helped show-writers garner a 2 hour special for Sense8!  Amazing!

I am so happy that we get 2 hours to wrap up Sense8, and don’t take this blogpost here as less than gratitude for that 2 hours.  But I’d like to make a bigger case for you–a case you haven’t heard–about giving Sense8 a whole season based on what might be good for Netflix, not just for fans.

While there has been speculation as to why the show was not renewed, that’s speculation.  Netflix spends a lot of money trying to find hit series, and sometimes a good series doesn’t find the right market.  When the cancellation happened, there was plenty of anger towards Netflix, and, in the moment, I even threatened to dump Netflix.  But I love Stranger Things, and I watch Star Trek, Daredevil, Luke Cage, etc.  It would be hard for me to dump Netflix for good.  I know, they’re counting on that–they’ve made us LOVE this service. Okay.

Instead of eight negative reasons to renew Sense8, I want to give 8 positive reasons to renew Sense8 for a whole last season.  I want to give them something they can go to the marketing table with and say—“Let’s do one more season.” (Please especially consider #7)

Ultimately, right decisions aren’t made because of negative consequences but because the positive consequences are stronger.  We aren’t charitable because of Fear of Hell or Fear of Bad Publicity.  We are charitable because we want to help.

Why Netflix Would Want to Complete a Third Season of Sense8

1. NETFLIX IS COMMITTED TO COMPLETION: Sense8 has exactly ONE more season.  It’s a three season arc.  You renew that last season, you are a hero, and the story is complete, and people bingewatch the three seasons for years afterwards on Netflix.  They will come to Netflix for those three seasons.  You’re not having to commit to an unknown number of seasons, or risking anything AFTER this season.  You already committed two seasons and they were amazing, and fans loved them, and they are almost home-free.  You create NEW fans by following through on your series.  But MORE people will become afraid to watch or commit to a new series if the series could be cancelled before it’s finished.  The more unfinished series, the more Netflix becomes untrustworthy for a new viewer.  The positive spin: you complete series, and they can be assured that when they watch a series on Netflix, especially with the millions of fans this series has created, that it will have closure–that series runners will know ahead of time that their series must establish closure.  This one is close to being finished.

2.  NETFLIX EDUCATES ITS VIEWERSHIP ABOUT VIEWERSHIP.  You teach Netflix viewers about Viewership using Sense8.  Part of the shock of this announcement was that viewers thought that their fan base was enough.  We don’t get to watch the Viewership numbers like you do, so we can’t tell when to rally, or how we’re doing, or if we’re about to fall.  It’s a bit unfair to a very large group of fans to say that their numbers are not enough.  What kinds of viewership help make your decisions?  Do you need a certain number every week?  And how do you calculate when you drop 10 episodes over a weekend?  How many times should we view it?  How many tweets do you need?  How many blogposts analyzing the show?  If you give us those numbers, WE CAN HELP SAVE THE SHOWS WE LOVE.  I guarantee that the fanbase for Sense8 is the most dedicated fan base you’ve ever had (more on that below).  But telling us to love a show and then, when it’s not good enough, taking it from us without telling us how to celebrate and support it correctly can be very bad in the long run–it leaves a bad taste in fans’ mouths.  Netflix needs to teach its viewers what matters to save a show–how can we love a show enough to keep it if we don’t know what you need?  If not, fans won’t try a show till a second season is guaranteed…or may just not try it unless you do what you did with The Crown, and guarantee 6 seasons to tell that arc.

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