a&e features
Baltimore’s ‘Visionary’ curator prepares to step down
For 26 years, Hoffberger has created a loving haven and championed LGBTQ artists
The American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore has highlighted hundreds of artists since it opened in 1995, and works by LGBTQ artists have featured prominently in both its permanent collection and changing exhibits.
From Andrew Logan’s Cosmic Galaxy Egg sculpture to Robert Benson’s blinged-out Universal Tree of Life to Judy Tallwing’s Prayer for Peace painting, LGBTQ artists have been responsible for some of most memorable creations that visitors will see, whether they know it or not.
This pattern of inclusion is part of the legacy of museum founder, director and primary curator Rebecca Alban Hoffberger, a longtime ally of the LGBTQ community. After 26 years running the museum, Hoffberger announced in July that she plans to retire in March of 2022, and AVAM’s board has launched a search for her replacement.
But unlike some museum directors who have called attention to their recent efforts to promote greater diversity in the range of artists they show, Hoffberger said she has never set out specifically to include a certain percentage of LGBTQ artists, just as she has never set a goal for featuring a certain number of minority or female artists.
She said she simply tries to find the best artists for each show, based on the perspectives they bring and the work they produce. In many cases, she said, she doesn’t necessarily know an artist’s sexual orientation, unless their work is homoerotic or intentionally refers in other ways to their identity.
Hoffberger said her resistance to quotas is not because she’s color-blind or gender-blind.
“I would say I’m color- and race-celebratory,” she said. “There’s a quote by [Canadian writer] Dorothy Maclean: ‘Humankind trend should be to unity, not uniformity.’ That pretty much sums it up. That’s how I feel. Labels like gay or straight or bi, what do they tell you about a person? Not very much. I’m not so interested in people’s sexuality. I’m interested in the person.”
Hoffberger likens curating a museum exhibit to planning a banquet: “If you’re looking to offer…as delicious a feast as possible, it comes naturally that you would have participation by extraordinary people of every stripe.”
Located at 800 Key Highway near the city’s Inner Harbor waterfront, the museum has been designated by Congress as a “national repository and educational center for visionary art,” which is defined as works “produced by self-taught individuals, usually without formal training,” which arise from “an innate personal vision that revels in the creative act itself.”
These creators, sometimes called outsider artists, often try to make sense of the world by making art with whatever materials they have at hand, whether it’s egg shells or toothpicks or more conventional artist supplies.
Hoffberger said she prefers the term visionary artists, or intuitive or self-taught, to ‘outsider.’ But she notes that it makes sense that many LGBTQ individuals turn out to be visionary artists because of the experiences they’ve had in life. She said many members of the LGBTQ community have lived outside the mainstream in one way or another, and that has both fueled their drive to make art and informed the art they make.
“How about you’re born into a family where all the girls are gorgeous and you’re the fat one? Or you have a deformity? There’s a myriad of ways that people feel out of step,” she said. “When the life experience is too big for words, it often will come out from non-artists as a creative expression for the first time because there are just no words for it.”
This doesn’t mean LGBTQ artists are inherently better than non-LGBTQ artists, she said.
“Better? No. But anyone who feels for any reason like an outsider, who has experience feeling like a stranger, always has a more in-depth take at reality because they are on some level on the outside…The point is that people who have that little bit of knowing what it is like to be outside the circle actually often will have a perspective that helps evolve and draw a circle.”
Something happens to people when they aren’t from the “established pack,” she said, that makes them look at the world differently and react differently and perhaps get more creative.
“When you’re not from the pack…when you’re forced out of conventional thinking because people are giving you pretty clear signals that you’re not like them in ways that they may even be hostile to, then you start to think more deeply because you can’t coast on being accepted in the same way. It’s not as easy.”
Hoffberger points to the work of gay filmmaker John Waters and his ability to capture what it’s like to live outside the mainstream.
“That’s what I think John Waters has done so unbelievably well,” she said. “He didn’t shock just to shock. He always had this softness for seeing value in people that other people would never have focused on. And in doing that, you sense that you are with someone who’s going to give you a break. That’s why he has yet another generation of fierce fans. This is a person who draws a big circle around the human family, and we’re living in a time when people are getting more and more narrow…So you want to be in the camp of championing more people, the beauty of more people, and the more diverse the better.”
As director and curator, Hoffberger said, she seeks out the best work she can find by visionary artists to incorporate in the museum’s exhibits. But rather than presenting works of visionary art as objects unto themselves, she curates exhibits that combine art, science, philosophy and humor, with an organizing theme for each show and an underlying focus on social justice and betterment.
In some cases, AVAM has explored themes that touch on gender, gender rights and human sexuality, including a 2005-2006 show entitled “Race, Class and Gender: 3 Things that Contribute ‘0’ to CHARACTER (Because being a Schmuck is an equal opportunity for everyone!) For exhibits such as that, Hoffberger said, works by LGBTQ artists can be particularly appropriate due to the artist’s point of view.
In other exhibits, she has focused on issues ranging from climate change to hunger to public health. AVAM’s next major exhibit, scheduled to open Oct. 9 and run until Sept. 4, 2022, is entitled “Healing & The Art of Compassion (and the Lack Thereof.)
Hoffberger said she doesn’t think sex or race are good ways to assess people.
“I don’t think your sexual orientation, I don’t think your color, I don’t think your religion, conveys any quality of character whatsoever,” she said. “That’s why I did that show, Race, Class and Gender. Three things that contribute zero to character but everybody is talking about all the time. I would think it would be more fair, since they’re approximately 50 percent of the population, if there were more women leaders. But do I think that because you are a woman leader you are going to be more spectacular just because of having a vagina? No, absolutely not. None of those things mean much to me, frankly.”
That goes for artists as well as elected leaders, Hoffberger said.
“I don’t even like it when I can look at a work of art and go, I know a woman did this. I really don’t like that,” she said. “I’d rather it just be kind of a soul, with different clothes on. I like magnificent souls, with whatever. And in that celebration, you have a great tenderness to be open to wherever that soul and beauty will manifest.”
AVAM has become a magnet for LGBTQ visitors, she said, because it’s a place where they feel comfortable with the art and the other patrons.
“What I love about the museum is that it is such a haven,” she said. “There are so many young teens that are transitioning, who come because, whether you’re wearing a burka or whatever, there’s a safety in being in our museum because there’s such a welcoming, loving vibe. You can see people who you can relate to not only walking through the museum but also in the art.”
Following are some of the LGBTQ artists whose work is or has been featured at the American Visionary Art Museum:
Andrew Logan, (1945- ) His works at AVAM: A 10-foot-tall sculpture of Divine, a tribute to the drag performer who starred in “Pink Flamingos,” “Multiple Maniacs,” “Hairspray” and other movies by filmmaker John Waters; Black Icarus, a figure suspended above the museum’s main staircase, and the Cosmic Galaxy Egg, an eight-foot-high sculpture on a plaza outside the museum’s Jim Rouse Visionary Center, inspired by the deep space images revealed by Hubble Telescope transmissions. Hoffberger is hoping to add a fourth work by Logan, a sculpture of the mythical creature Pegasus.
Logan was born in 1945, the third of five brothers in a family with one younger sister. In 1967 Logan graduated from the Oxford School of Architecture and spent one year in the United States working for the Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission. At the age of 27, Logan gained notoriety as the co-founder, along with Baltimore’s Divine, of the Alternative Miss World contest, an inclusive beauty contest open to transvestites, the old and the young, men and women. His contest emphasized imagination and the radiance of beauty from within. In 1979, Andrew’s Alternative Miss World contest fought off legal action from another event with the help of a budding young defense barrister – future British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Logan is a tap dance and yoga aficionado and a prolific self-taught artist whose sculptures, mirrored jewelry, costumes, stage sets, and performance pieces have garnered a wide audience. He creates his art by using materials that are at hand, often incorporating mirror fragments and fabric remnants, and adding realistically sculpted heads and bodies. In the 1980’s Logan founded his own museum in Berriew, Wales, to house and display a portion of his work.
“The mirror of the universe has been my life for almost forty years,” the museum’s website quotes Logan as saying. “It has an energy like no other material. I have played with mirrors to create monuments, portraits, wall pieces and sculptural jewelry…My life is an artistic adventure.”
Judy Tallwing, (1945- ). Her work at AVAM: A painting entitled Prayer for Peace is part of the museum’s permanent collection. It was a gift of the artist in memory of Sashie Helene Hyatt.
Tallwing is an Apache elder, leatherwoman and multi-media artist who won the first International Ms. Leather contest in 1987. Born in Glendale, Ariz., Tallwing has childhood memories of living in the desert with her parents and seven half brothers and sisters, helping to hunt rattlesnakes, and selling rocks by the roadside. Like many Native American children, Tallwing attended both a Catholic girls’ school and Indian School. She has six children, 23 grandchildren, and seven great grandchildren.
Tallwing started making art as far back as she can remember. “We didn’t call it art, we called it making things to sell along the road to help the family survive. I used to watch my grandmother, grandfather, and my mother all doing various forms of what I now know is art, to sell, and I wanted to help.” The first thing of hers that sold was a bee sitting on a flower, painted on a rock. It sold for 25 cents.
In her youth, Tallwing did a little bit of everything, from running her own construction and leather production companies to being the executive director of a domestic violence victims’ program and running an animal rescue operation for 13 years. “I think an ‘aha moment’ for me was realizing I could go to college, even without much other schooling.”
Starting college at age 32 changed her life; she now holds both an associates’ and bachelor’s degree. She travels to what she calls “power places” and brings back tiny fragments from those places to put in every painting or sculpture that calls for them, including copper, silver, turquoise, garnet, prayer ashes, and minute crystal prayer beads.
“I love trying to bring the stories I’ve heard to life and to add the spiritual aspects of the stories through the medicine of different elements of nature,” she has said. “Each thing that lives on the earth has its own energy and I try to put those energies together to create a healing.”
Ingo Swann, (1933–2013). His work at AVAM: The Light Bringer, a painting in the museum’s permanent collection.
Swann is best known as a pioneer in the field of remote viewing, the practice of seeking impressions about a distant or unseen target, also described as “sensing” with the mind. Swann’s high rate of success in this field led him to co-create, along with Harold Puthoff and Russell Targ, the Stanford Research Institute of Remote Viewing and the CIA Stargate Project, launched to investigate psychic phenomena in military and domestic intelligence applications.
Swann was born high in the Rocky Mountains in Telluride, Colo., on Sept. 14, 1933. His father was a truck driver and he had two sisters. He often spoke of the beauty of his surroundings as a child, particularly the crystal-clear skies where he could see the Milky Way each night.
Swann wrote that he first experienced leaving his body at the age of three, during an operation to remove his tonsils. At that time he also became aware of seeing “butterfly lights” around people, plants, and some animals, which he later learned were auras. By nine, he wrote that he’d remotely traveled to the Milky Way. He famously claimed to have sent his consciousness to Jupiter prior to the arrival of NASA’s Voyager satellite probe and accurately described many of the planet’s features, including Jupiter’s then-unknown rings.
Swann’s paintings express his passion for exploring the mysteries of the universe and recapture his visions from leaving his body, remote viewing, and seeing auras. Swann was also a musician and a writer of several books, including his autobiography, “Penetration: The Question of Extraterrestrial and Human Telepathy” (1998). He died on Jan. 31, 2013 in New York City.
Bobby Adams (1946 – ). His work at AVAM: His photographs, scrapbooks and shrines have been featured in three exhibits.
Adams is a multimedia artist and a member of filmmaker John Waters’ group known as the Dreamlanders. He was born Robert Reid Adams on Feb. 15, 1946 in Dallas, and grew up in Baltimore. His father, a former boxer and strict disciplinarian, operated a floor sanding business in Dundalk. His “beloved and gentle” mother taught school and would eventually die by suicide in 1976.
Adams graduated in 1964 from Sparrows Point Senior High School and was able to avoid being sent to Vietnam because of a hearing problem. He became a pirate radio DJ in the late 1960s, playing at gatherings around Baltimore and spinning records for a station he dubbed W.E.E.D. He assembled elaborate scrapbooks stuffed with psychedelic collages and philosophical, often humorous, musings to illustrate his DJ patter and circulate among listeners at gigs.
In 1970, he began working with John Waters, who filmed “Pink Flamingos” at the Baltimore County farm where Adams was living. Ever since, Adams has been the filmmaker’s unofficial documentarian, taking photographs on film sets and chronicling the exploits of Waters’ band of renegades, the Dreamlanders. “I never learned how to do the camera,” notes Adams. “I just point and shoot. My approach is simple: I start with love, and the camera sees it.”
A self-professed Christmas addict, Adams makes hundreds of personalized, handmade, labor-of-love holiday cards for friends and family each year. Inspired in part by Waters’ own art making and an Edward Kienholz exhibition he chanced upon, Adams began making art in 1996, after the loss of his toy poodle, Odie. He created 50 multimedia tribute pieces to Odie and installed them throughout his waterfront cottage. Before it was displayed at AVAM, Adams’s art had never been exhibited publicly. When asked if he ever had an unrealistic hope fulfilled, he said, “Yes, being included in this show.”
Robert E. Benson, (1930 – ). His work at AVAM: The shiny Universal Tree of Life visible near the museum’s main entrance on Key Highway; the fart machine in the museum’s Flatulence exhibit; the ocean beneath Andrew Logan’s Black Icarus sculpture and the sky above it, and other creations.
Benson is a popular classical music radio host who became a prolific visual artist late in life. Born in Chicago, he served in the Army from 1951-1953 as enlisted secretary to General Mark Clark, commander-in-chief of the Far East Command. From 1953-1955 he worked for the B&O Railroad as secretary to the Manager of Industrial Development, and for two years was Assistant Manager of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.
Benson’s radio career began in 1958 when he was program director of WFDS-FM, which two years later became WBAL-FM. He was program director and chief announcer there until 1974, when he became Director of Audience Development for the Baltimore Symphony.
In 1975, Benson became coordinator of the Maryland State Arts Council’s Community Arts Development program working to organize county arts councils in all 23 counties of Maryland. He also was in charge of grants to music organizations and individuals, and retired from his state job in 1995. In 1979 he became morning announcer for WBJC-FM, where he remained until 1986. For 10 years beginning in 1987, Benson did programming and announcing for WJHU (now WYPR). He has collected recordings for many years, with particular interest in historic performances. He has written reviews for numerous publications, including Forecast FM, Hi Fi Stereo Buyers Guide, High Fidelity and Stereophile.
Benson lives in Glen Burnie, Md., where he grows orchids in his “underground” greenhouse, a hobby of three decades, and listens to music on his elaborate surround sound system. Since 2004 he has been working with mirrors and stained glass, creating varied art and decorative pieces.
Andrey Bartenev, (1969 –). His work at AVAM: In 2007, Bartenev won first prize in the museum’s “Bra Ball,” for his black and white rubber costume and performance.
Bartenev is a Russian performer, sculptor and experimentalist who won the Alternate Miss World pansexual beauty pageant in 2018 as Miss UFO. He was born on Oct. 9, 1969 in the northernmost Arctic Circle city of Norilsk in Siberia, an industrial town famous for its reserves and production of aluminum.
Bartenev recalls “three months of total darkness, one month of really hot summer, and 15 days each for spring and autumn.” His only sibling, a sister, was 12 years older. Bartenev’s father was a coal mining engineer and his mother was an industrial safety engineer. Both worked long hours, giving Bartenev free reign to decide how he spent his time alone.
At three, Bartenev loved scissors and began to cut images and patterns from books. “We made all our toys out of snow.” At an early age, Bartenev would organize parties for his friends who were also left alone, getting them to bring over all their pets. He used plastic to sculpt little “castles” for his mice and hamsters, and made costumes for his cats and dogs.
At 16, Bartenev moved with his family to Sochi in the south of Russia — “like Miami with mountains.” In college he studied theater and directing, graduating with high honors. His first job was directing a children’s theater near Chechnya. He also danced and performed in a local cabaret.
Moving to Moscow in 1990, Bartenev supported himself doing collages and graphics and competed in the Big Arts Festival at the Baltic Sea in 1992, where he met one of the judges, Andrew Logan, co-founder of the Alternative Miss World contest. Bartenev made a Snow Queen costume out of papier-mâché that won the top prize. Logan invited him to compete in the Alternative Miss World contest in 1995, 1998, and 2002 in London. There, Bartenev also created programs for the popular BBC children’s TV show, “Blue Peter” and re-staged his original performance show, “Botanic Ballet.” In 2007, he brought his talents to Baltimore and won first prize in AVAM’s “Bra Ball.” He has said his idea of perfect beauty is his childhood vision of “black sky and white snow.”
James Franklin Snodgrass (1922–2000). His work at AVAM: An untitled painting in the permanent collection, the gift of Robert Civello.
Snodgrass was born in Harford County, Md. in 1922. The son of a schoolteacher, he painted mannequins and traveled throughout the United States after graduating from college. During World War II, he declared himself a conscientious objector and worked as an ambulance driver for a Quaker society.
Appearing on television game shows became a peculiar “hobby” for Snodgrass, who won prize money on several occasions. In the late 1950s, he became the focus of public attention after he exposed fraudulent practices on the popular quiz show, Twenty-One. His story inspired Robert Redford’s 1994 film, “Quiz Show.”
Afterwards, Snodgrass grew increasingly reclusive and focused on his art. He was evasive, even secretive, about the untitled painting in AVAM’s collection, which took many years to complete. He died from cancer in early 2000.
Located at 800 Key Highway, the American Visionary Art Museum is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesdays through Sundays. Advance online purchase of a timed ticket is required to visit the museum. Visiting just the museum store, Sideshow, is free and does not require purchase of a ticket.
a&e features
Meet Mr. Christmas
Hallmark’s Jonathan Bennett on telling gay love stories for mainstream audiences
Jonathan Bennett believes there are two kinds of people in the world — those who love Hallmark movies and liars. And in Season 2 of Finding Mr. Christmas, which the Mean Girls star co-created with Ben Roy, Bennett is searching for Hallmark’s next leading man.
“It’s so fun for people because everyone in their life has someone they know that they think should be in Hallmark movies, right? The UPS driver, the barista at the coffee shop, the dentist,” Bennett says. “So we’re testing their acting abilities, we’re testing who they are, but we’re also looking for that star quality — the thing that makes them shine above everyone else. It’s almost something you can’t explain, but we know it when we see it.”
Season 2’s cast includes a former NFL player for the Green Bay Packers, a few actors, and a realtor. The 10 men compete in weekly festive-themed acting challenges, one of which included having to ride a horse and act out a scene with Alison Sweeney. The contestants were chosen from a crop of 360 potential men, and Bennett gives kudos to the show’s Emmy-nominated casting director, Lindsay Liles (The Bachelor, Bachelor in Paradise).
“She has a tough job because she has to find 10 guys that are going to be good reality television, but also have the talent to act, carry a scene, and lead a Hallmark movie eventually,” he says. To be the right fit for a Hallmark leading man, Bennett singles out five key characteristics: you have to be funny, charming, kind, have a sense of humor, and you have to do it all with a big heart.
Of course, Finding Mr. Christmas wouldn’t be Finding Mr. Christmas without its signature eye candy — something Bennett describes as “part of the job” for the contestants. “I can’t believe Hallmark let me get away with this. I dressed them as sexy reindeer and put them in harnesses attached to a cable 30 feet in the air, and they had to do a sexy reindeer photo shoot challenge,” he says with a laugh. “This season is just bigger and bolder than last. People are responding to not only all the craziness that we put them through, but also comparing and contrasting the guys in their acting scenes when we do them back-to-back.”
Season 1 winner Ezra Moreland’s career has been an early testament to the show’s success at finding rising talent. On seeing the show’s first winner flourish, Bennett says, “Now to watch him out in the world, just booking commercial after commercial and shining as an actor and a model, I think the show gave him the wings to do that. He learned so much about himself, and he took all that into his future auditions and casting. He just works nonstop. I’ve never seen an actor book more commercials and modeling gigs in my life.”
Bennett has been a star of plenty of Hallmark movies himself, including the GLAAD-award-winning The Groomsmen: Second Chances, which makes him a fitting host. Among those movies are 2020’s Christmas House, which featured the first same-sex kiss on the network and had a major impact on Bennett’s career as an openly gay man. “Hallmark’s been so great about supporting me in queer storytelling. But again, I don’t make gay movies for gay audiences. I make gay love stories for a broad audience, and that’s a huge difference, right? We’re not telling stories inside baseball that only the gay community will understand.”
He continues, “The backdrop of a Hallmark Christmas movie is very familiar to these people who watch. And so when you tell a gay love story, and you tell it no differently than a straight love story in that space, they’re able to understand. It’s able to change hearts and minds for people who might not have it in their lives.”
While Hallmark has become a major staple of Bennett’s career, he started off wanting to be a Broadway actor. And before the first season of Finding Mr. Christmas aired, Bennett took a break from TV to make his Broadway debut in Spamalot, replacing Michael Urie as Sir Robin and starring alongside Ethan Slater and Alex Brightman.
“That was my dream since I was five years old – then I booked a movie called Mean Girls, and everything kind of changes in your life. You no longer become a person pursuing Broadway, you become a part of pop culture,” Bennett recalls. “And to be honest, when I hit 40, I was like, ‘I’m probably never going to get to live that dream.’ And that’s okay, because I got to do other dreams and other things that were just as cool but different. So I honestly never thought it would happen.”
Bennett is still determined to make his way back on Broadway with the right role — he calls Spamalot the “best experience” of his life, after all — but he’s got another Hallmark show lined up with Murder Mystery House, which he co-created. The show was recently greenlit for development and intends to bring the Hallmark mystery movie to life. “It’s kind of like our version of The Traitors,” Bennett admits.
Looking back on both seasons, Bennett says that what makes Finding Mr. Christmas stand out in the overcrowded reality TV landscape is that everyone involved makes it with heart: “This isn’t a show where you’re going to watch people throw drinks in each other’s faces and get into big fights. The thing that has amazed me so much about this show, the more we’ve done it, is that every season, 10 guys come in as competitors, but they leave as a family and as brothers. That’s something you don’t get on any other network.”
Finding Mr. Christmas airs every Monday on Hallmark through December 20, with episodes available to stream on Hallmark+.
a&e features
Guillermo Diaz on his role as a queer, Latino actor in Hollywood
Shattering stereotypes and norms with long resume of roles
Actor Guillermo Diaz has been working hard in the entertainment industry for more than three decades. Proud of his heritage and queer identity, he has broken through many glass ceilings to have a prolific career that includes tentpole moments such as roles in the films Party Girl, Half Baked, and Bros, and in major TV shows like Weeds and Scandal, and even in a Britney Spears music video. This season, he made his feature-length directorial debut with the film Dear Luke, Love Me.
In an intimate sit-down with the Blade, Diaz shares that he attributes a lot of his success to his Cuban upbringing.
“Well, it prepared me to learn how to lie really well and be a good actor because it was a lot of acting like you were straight, back in the eighties and nineties (laugh). Another thing I learned from my Cuban immigrant parents is that they work super hard. They both had two jobs; we were latchkey kids, and I just saw them constantly working and wanting to provide for us by any means. So that was super instilled in me. That was the one thing that really stuck out that I admire and respect.”
Besides Diaz’s recurring roles on TV, his resume includes appearances in just about every genre of programming out there. If there is a major show out there, he was probably on it. Law and Order, Girls, The Closer, Chappelle’s Show, ER, Party of Five, and the list goes on. He’s accomplished more in his career thus far than most actors do in a lifetime. There is no doubt he is a hard worker.
“It’s a sign that I just loved to work, and it’s funny looking back at it now because you see all those things, but at the time it was just the next gig, the next job. I was just wanting to keep working and acting and learning and doing all that stuff. Then it sort of accumulates, and you look back and you’re like, damn! That’s a lot of stuff!”
Acting was never on Diaz’s radar until he was asked to fill in for a friend in a Beastie Boys medley for a talent show when he was a sophomore in high school.
“I did it and fell in love with it. I was teased a lot in high school. Then, when I did that performance, all those people who teased me were like, you were so great! So I looked at it initially as a thing of like, oh, this is where I’m accepted and people like me when I’m on stage. It’s kind of sad, too, because that’s what I latched onto. And then of course, I fell in love with the craft and performing and acting, but that initial rush was because all these people who were messing with me and teasing me all of a sudden liked me. And I was like, this is what I have to do.”
Little did Diaz know that he would break the mold when it came to stereotypical casting. When he first hit the industry, diversity and positive representation were not a thing in Hollywood.
“You just kind of accepted at the time. It was the early nineties. 90% of the time, it was playing a thug or a gun dealer, or a crack head – it was all bad guys, negative characters. But it was either that or not act and not be in anything. So you just kind of accept it, and then you have this sort of vision or hope that in the future it’s going to get better.
Diaz’s management was trepidatious about him playing gay roles for fear of being typecast. But Diaz did play a handful of gay roles early on, although he passed on But I’m A Cheerleader, which went on to become a gay cult classic. Diaz decided early on that he was not going to hide his sexuality. Diaz appeared in the film Stonewall. That was the defining point for him in sharing his identity.
“Being cast in that historical sort of dramatization of the 1969 Stonewall riots – I couldn’t believe I was in the midst that I was in the middle of doing this and playing the lead drag queen on the film. I just felt so honored, and I knew it was important, and I knew I needed to do a really good job. I thought, what a special moment this is. And it kicked my ass shooting that movie.
I remember after doing Stonewall, people saying, well, now you’re either going to have to make a choice if you’re going to lie, or if you’re going to just be honest, and you’re going to have to be out from now on if you’re going to be honest. And I was like, I’m not going to freaking lie. When they’d asked me, I would say I was gay. I think because I never tried to hide it, it didn’t become a thing. So people just kind of ignored it. It didn’t mess with me or my career. I don’t know. Or I just got lucky. I don’t freaking know.”
As a queer, Latin actor, Diaz is all too aware of what is happening politically and socially in the world towards minority communities. Does he think actors have a place in politics?
“For sure. I mean, we’re people first, right? Like, I hate when people sort of are like, oh, you’re an actor, shut up. I’m super political and outspoken, and I’m that guy who will say shit. I’m on the right side of history, at least. I’m not being complicit and silent. So, yeah, I think actors for sure have a place in politics. Absolutely.”
While directing was on Diaz’s radar, it wasn’t something that he was actively searching out. But as life would have it, his friend Mallie McCown sent him her script for Dear Luke, Love Me, a film she would play the lead in. Diaz was hooked.
“It was one of those scripts that I had to keep putting down every like 20 pages. I would put it down because I didn’t want it to end. It was so good. Originally, I was just going to come on as a producer of the film, and then the director dropped out, and then Mallie asked me if I was interested in directing. I was scared as shit. I had never directed a feature film. But I was like, it’s now or never.”
The film covers a decade of the friendship between Penny and Luke, covering themes of platonic love, asexuality, co-dependence, and self-identity. With most of the film focusing on just the two leads, Diaz has crafted an intimate and raw film. What is his message with the film?
“That love is complicated, but it’s beautiful and rewarding and worth all the heartache. I believe that. I don’t want to give away too much in the film either, but I think everyone can relate to it because there’s heartache and there’s pain, and there’s beauty and there’s love.”
And in looking at his past work and in looking toward his future career, what kind of legacy does Diaz want to build?
“That I broke some ground, that I knocked down some walls as an artist; I’m hoping that made a difference. It’s funny because when you’re in it, you’re not thinking about all this stuff that could possibly pave the way for other people. You’re just kind of moving along and living your life. But yeah, I would hope that I broke down some walls as a queer Latino.
I hope that people can sort of get something out of me trying to live as authentically as I can, just being my queer self. Hopefully, that helps someone along who is having some troubles being accepted or being comfortable with who they are.”
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Exhibit showcases trans, nonbinary joy in Maryland and Virginia
‘Becoming Ourselves’ proclaims that our lives are ‘expressions of divine creation’
Gwen Andersen was putting up posters for her photography exhibition “Becoming Ourselves” in and around Takoma Park shortly following the death of Nex Benedict. “Everybody’s heart was heavy,” the lesbian photographer said, “and I’m waltzing around town putting up these posters.” At a bookstore, she asked the person working at the front desk if she could put up one of the posters. They immediately looked at it more closely because of the trans flag, and said yes.
“When they read it and saw that it was something positive, beautiful, happy, they started to cry,” Andersen said, and she instinctively asked if she could give them a hug. With permission, she walked around the counter and embraced them — and in many ways, herself — in a world where negativity and violence takes aim at and harms the LGBTQ community. It was a powerful moment, she admitted, because “the first person didn’t even see the pictures.”
“That’s when I realized.” she said, “just how the idea of this is making an impact.”
“Becoming Ourselves” is an exhibition of 26 photos featuring happy and joyful trans and nonbinary adults and children that has been displayed at six different spaces of worship and one gallery in Maryland and Virginia. From the United Universalist Congregation of Rockville (UCCR) to its eighth spot that opened at the Sandy Springs Meeting House on Oct. 1, the exhibition originally started after Andersen’s friend Marian Bowden connected her with Sandra Davis, then president-elect for the Women’s Caucus of Art. Davis, seeing that Andersen had something critical to say during a time of intense anti-trans violence, became her mentor.
Andersen decided to host the exhibition at the UCCR based on the suggestions of her friend Rev. Jill McCrory, an affirming pastor and justice advocate, who along with Stevie Neal had previously invited Andersen to help found Montgomery County (MoCo) Pride. McCrory recommended UCCR and Davis shared that the church had their own hanging system, but for Andersen, their eager acceptance of the show sealed the deal.
“They were so happy to have been asked,” Andersen said. “They weren’t just consenting. They were wildly enthusiastic about it. I could not have had a better first place to host this.”
Rev. Dr. Rebekah Savage echoed this affirmation. Andersen approached her in October 2023 and from the very beginning, Savage acknowledged, we knew it would be a vital gift to congregants. Showcasing queer and trans people in spaces of worship, as the portraits hung in the Sanctuary during Sunday morning worship for Transgender Day of Visibility is critical, Savage explained, and it “does more than challenge exclusion,” Savage said. “It proclaims to the world that LGBTQ+ lives are sacred, beautiful, and an essential expression of the divine creation.”
“This visibility is both healing and life-saving, especially right now: for trans youth and families who need to know that there are faith communities ready to celebrate with them fully,” Savage continued. “Becoming Ourselves,” she said, visualized the leadership of our trans loved ones and held space for joy and celebration during times of intense violence. It has, Savage said, “become a beacon of hope, within our congregation and beyond, witnessing to the power of love, equality, and justice as sacred commitments.”
But there was a time crunch — the exhibition would open in March 2024, so all photos had to be taken by December 2023 and to her surprise, there was great interest in being part of the project. She had taken some photos already, but when a friend’s child asked if their friends could be part of it, they realized they would need extra enforcements to get the photos taken and processed in time for printing, so she connected with Salgu Wissmath, a nonbinary photography who recently opened their own exhibition “Divine Identity,” and other photographers from Los Angeles, London, and Baltimore.
She also reached out to Natasha Nazareth from Gaithersburg and Elias Nikitchyuk who worked locally and contributed photos to the exhibition.
She also brought a child — Emery — on as the Formal Youth Adviser, recognizing that the show’s most important audience would be trans and nonbinary children. The resulting 26 photos of joyful trans and nonbinary adults and children were chosen by LGBTQ young people from across the United States who shared their selections through a virtual survey, and the group just made the tight deadline. Sadly, Stevie (a nickname for the beloved Petra Stephanie) Neal passed before the project was put on display, but their estate covered photography printing costs.
Soon, the UCCR was filled to the brim with photos of happy and joyful trans people. While UCCR has designated a room for its display, there were too many so the photos spilled out into the hallway, entryway, and anywhere else they would fit. It was only the first of many surprises.
She anticipated just displaying the show at the church in Rockville, but at the opening, McCrory shared that she would love for the show to be on display at Bethesda United Church of Christ (UCC) where she was then and is now working as an interim pastor, so it went to Bethesda UCC next, but that wasn’t its final stop as church members attended other parishes, they shared that they wanted the photos displayed in their own spaces of worship, and soon the photos had travelled to Christ the Servant Lutheran Church in Gaithersburg, Pilgrim Church in Wheaton, Hope United Church of Christ in Alexandria, PhotoWorks at Glen Echo, and finally, Third Space in Baltimore — its most recent stop at the recommendation of one of the photographers. A friend of Octavia Bloom, a Baltimore photographer, wanted the show to come to their hometown.
The exhibition at Third Space came to an end on Aug. 8, but as before, another church —this one Sandy Springs Meeting House — stepped up to host the show. The brick Sandy Springs Meeting House was originally constructed in 1817 and has stood ever since, making the Sandy Spring Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends one of the oldest Quaker Meetings in Maryland. Sandy Spring just put up their hanging system, on loan from a local artist, this month and aims to have the show on display to the public soon.
For some, the choice to display the exhibition in churches may seem like a strange or at least surprising one, but for Andersen, it was a meaningful choice. For Andersen, it helps counter the narrative of churches being places of hostility and part of campaigns against us. While recognizing the history of harm that churches and other religious institutions have caused through conversion therapy, exclusion, hate speech, and more, Andersen’s exhibition showcases how spaces of faith can also be key centers of LGBTQ advocacy and organizing. In fact, D.C. has a rich history of LGBTQ activism based out of and supported by faith communities.
“The fact that it was held in a church made so many people so happy. It also made many people cry because the church has been a place of hostility because the resistance, the hatred, of lesbians, gays, bis and transgender people has been biblical, both in terms of its size and in terms of its purported origin, and so having churches hold this exhibit was dearly important symbolically,” Andersen said.
Andersen shared that so many friends of hers who came to the show had not visited churches in decades because they (justifiably in some cases) viewed them as completely hostile locations. When they went to the exhibitions in the churches and were treated well, she said, she believes it was a healing experience, as it was for many trans and nonbinary children and adults and their parents who are facing a world of negative representation — either hostile from conservative, Christian nationalist groups or media portraying trans and nonbinary people as victims.
Andersen wanted to create a show that offered hope to trans and nonbinary kids, as It Gets Better did many years before. sharing videos and photos of happy and joyful LGBTQ adults as a way to share positivity and hopefully prevent suicide among LGBTQ children. It was more than timely than ever following Benedict’s death in February 2024. The previous day, Benedict was assaulted by other high school students in a girls’ restroom and later died by suicide.
“The purpose of the show was to counter all of the negativity because with Republicans running and now Trump in office there was so much animosity and hostility and people trying to pass these hateful laws that I knew this had to be having a negative impact on the mental health of trans kids.”
Andersen hopes that this exhibition enriches this rich tradition and sparks new conversations — and maybe even more happy tears — at Sandy Springs Meeting House this fall.
The show will be open most days between about 10 and 4 except for Mondays and Saturdays. Viewers are advised to call Sandy Springs Meeting House at 301-774-9792 first on weekdays. The show will continue until the end of December.
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