[SYNTHESIZED CHIMES]
Welcome.
Hi, everybody.
Thank you for being here today.
My name is Rebecca Trawick.
I'm the director curator of the Wignall
Museum at Chaffey College.
Thank you for joining us in today's artist talk,
featuring Eric Tenorio, presented
as part of Collective Care, Uncovering Identity
and in honor of a Day Without Art.
Collective Care, Uncovering Identity is a collaborative
series of programs developed by the Center for Culture
and Social Justice and the Wignall Museum that bring
together artists and community around issues relevant
to the LGBT+ community and that look at the intersection
of identity in the arts.
A Day Without Art was started in 1989
by Visual AIDS in response to the worsening AIDS crisis.
The original goals called out for mourning and action
in response to the AIDS crisis that would celebrate the lives
and achievements of lost colleagues and friends
and courage caring for all people with AIDS,
educating diverse publics about HIV infection,
and finding a cure.
More than 30 years later, arts organizations
take part annually to encourage education,
celebration, engagement, and awareness.
Please note the Wignall Museum of Contemporary Art
aims to present diverse, innovative programming that
engages contemporary subjects, social issues,
and artistic themes.
Sometimes presentations may contain
provocative or otherwise sensitive
content for some viewers.
Before I introduce you to Eric, I
want to introduce you to Dr. Letty Romo, director of Student
Equity and Engagement and collaborative partner
in Collective Care.
I want to thank everyone for joining us today.
I'm going to go ahead and read off our land acknowledgment.
And-- my technology has changed a little bit,
and so I'm still getting used to it.
With respect and honor for the lands where Chaffey College
resides and the leaders who came before us,
we'd like to take a moment to acknowledge
the Gabrieleño-Tongva peoples, the original stewards of these
sacred and unceded homelands.
The Tongva people's history, languages, cultural traditions,
and legacy continue to shape this region,
and we recognize their continuing presence
in their homelands.
In the spirit of truth and equity,
Chaffey College commits to uplifting
the voice of Indigenous peoples, building
an inclusive and equitable educational environment,
and decolonizing the institution.
We also encourage members of the Chaffey College community
to learn about the land they reside on
and their original caretakers and advocate for culturally
responsive action.
Thank you.
So today, I'm very pleased to introduce artist Eric Tenorio.
Eric is a SoCal-based photographer and queer HIV
plus, sorry, HIV positive Filipino American.
Tenorio graduated from the School
of Visual Arts, SVA, in New York City
after completion of his AA and photography
here at Chaffey College.
He uses his art to provoke viewers
to question and confront new perspectives,
to encourage discussion and understanding,
and to explore different realities.
Please join me in giving Eric a warm virtual welcome.
Thank you, Rebecca.
Thank you, Roman.
Thank you, everyone.
So I'm going to go ahead and share my screen.
So, yes, like Rebecca said, my name is Eric Tenorio.
My pronouns are he, him, his.
And just a little background.
Like she said, I'm a queer Filipino American.
I was born and raised in SoCal.
I've been doing photography now for 10 plus years.
And I was diagnosed with HIV in 2012, when I was 22 years old.
So I'm going to start off with discussing my work pre-HIV.
And my-- the way I dealt with photography,
the way I focused on my photography,
before I got my status.
My work was very by the assignment--
whatever the assignment was given,
I would just do whatever was asked of me.
There wasn't really an in-depth look of what I was doing.
I was passionate about photography,
but I wasn't fully invested at the time.
I was just doing what I had to do to get by and get
a solid grade.
My work was focusing on assignments.
But also, I started focusing more on myself
with my self-portraits, which started as just a way
to get around not using models.
My professor told me to start photographing myself.
I then started photographing myself because I wanted to.
And then, that also just started forming
my idea of my queer identity and my sense of style of my work
and moving forward.
When I was diagnosed with HIV when I was 22 years old,
it obviously turned my world upside down.
It was very jarring to me.
It was something that, obviously, a lot of people
think that they'll never get because
of just their way of thinking.
But I did get HIV when I was 22.
And it really gave me a drive in my work
to go forward and pursue the things I wanted to do and reach
the goals that I wanted to reach, and not have anything
hold me back anymore.
So I started really pushing myself and my work
to do ideas I never thought I would ever really do,
and playing with themes of femininity,
masculinity, playing with materials,
and just seeing how that would go
and how I really thought about it in connection with myself
and my identity.
So during the time of me being HIV positive,
I decided to apply for the Student Invitational, which
then led me into applying for SVA.
So the Student Invitational was a really big way
for me to really push myself to where I wanted to be
and what I wanted to do with my photography.
I wanted to explore my masculinity and femininity,
my love for theatricality, and combining
those two within the domestic setting itself
and really playing around with those elements.
So I would photograph myself in my house, my aunt's house.
I would have my makeup done.
And then, I would take these fabrics and materials
that I thought were really beautiful
and then wrap myself up in it or make an outfit of it,
as you see.
The work was really powerful to me,
and it really showed people who I was as a photographer,
and showed myself who I was as a photographer.
Oh, I'm sorry, there is a Shark vacuum
going off right now where I'm at, so hold on a second.
Sorry about that.
So anyways, yeah.
So this work was really just a way to explore,
like I said, my femininity and masculinity
and my theatricality and my queer identity itself
and what I thought about it for myself and how I viewed myself
and how I wanted the world to see a different part of me.
This is also what led me to apply to art school.
Art school, for me, was just something
I knew I was going to do at some point.
I wasn't really going for it before.
But then when I got my status, that's
when I realized I wanted to go art school.
I really wanted to continue my education
and try to push my photography.
So I started applying for schools.
Well, sorry-- I applied for one school.
I didn't do any backups.
I know that was bad of me.
But I applied to SVA, and I got in.
And this is the work that I showed
and everything that got me into SVA.
So my journey through SVA.
Before SVA, my work was, like I said, self-portraits.
But I was really just focusing on a fashion element and not
really--
and kind of covering myself and hiding myself still
within makeup and materials and clothing
and fabrics and everything.
And so when I got to SVA, I really
want to try something different.
And so I started photographing myself
nude with different kind of colored lights and lights that
had different kind of projections and everything
to really give myself--
give my work more layers and a nightlife-- queer nightlife
feel with it.
So I would photograph myself around New York City,
in my dorm room, or friends I had
made in New York and their New York apartments.
And it was just a way to explore myself and really
explore my relationship with my body
and how I felt with my body and how--
did I feel good in it?
Did I not feel good?
It was a really good way to start the conversation
with myself, to really explore.
Did I love my body?
Did I love the skin I was in?
And so it really helped me be more body positive
but also really helped me embrace my body and the body
that I was given--
and still be able to play with those themes of masculinity
and femininity and theatricality.
And this idea of dance being put into my work
and posing in different ways to really push
my body to see what my body could do within the poses.
I didn't see-- in the beginning of my SVA work, I did--
I never showed my face.
And then, my senior year, actually,
is when I started showing my face
and full frontal of my body.
And I really wanted to start connecting with the queer
men in my life that I had made friends with in SVA
or in New York City.
And it was kind of a nice pass of knowledge of-- like,
sometimes they were younger than me,
sometimes they were older than me.
And, actually, some of them had dealt with HIV too.
So it was a nice passing of knowledge
from a younger to older person or--
and vice versa.
And so it made the connection with me and this person
in these photographs even stronger.
And I felt even stronger connection with them
after the photo was taken.
And so I didn't also--
I didn't stick to one age range.
I definitely would go for older men as well to photograph
with, to befriend, just because their knowledge
of what I was going through was also really prominent.
Because they had gone through the--
lived through the HIV epidemic when they were young.
And so the getting that kind of knowledge from them
and to gain that experience helped form my identity
and what I wanted to do with my work as well.
Because I think with my work, I wanted to explore my identity
but also explore my HIV status and what that means to me
and what that means to the people around me.
Because with my work, I want to be
able to start a conversation about HIV
and how-- even though we have come so far in treatments
and in surviving this disease and this illness,
I want to build a conversation still around it though.
Because even though we have prep and even though we've
moved really far ahead of our time since then,
we still have such a stigma within the gay community,
but also just within the community
as a general, where there is a stigma and a fear of someone
who has HIV.
And so with my work going forward,
I was trying to create a conversation
to be up front with it as well.
So after I graduated SVA, it was a big change for me,
just because I was so used to being in school.
I was in school for how many years of my life,
and I was always on a strict schedule.
And so after SVA, I graduated, and then I
decided to take a break from photography just
to relax after doing months of nonstop shooting and work.
I decided to take a break, and then when I dived back
into my work, I hit a wall.
I tried going back to what I was doing at SVA,
and I couldn't figure out what I was doing.
And so I started printing out my work.
Old-- just on regular printer paper,
and I start printing out all my old photographs
and tearing them apart and putting them back together.
And just taking past me, present me,
and putting together to build a new image of me,
and possibly a future me.
It was a way for me to re-explore my past work
and what that work looks like to me now as a different person
and if I still have the same ideals, the same morals,
the same thoughts about it when I took that photo at that time
and how much I've changed and grown since then.
I was still exploring my body at the time
as well, just as this person that
now had this whole big future for them
and figuring out what I wanted to do with my life
after I graduated.
I was just doing what I always do during times
where I felt kind of lost, where I just start shooting stuff.
That was a way for me to keep going-- is to just,
no matter what kind of idea I had, I was always just,
get the idea, shoot it.
If I like it, I like it.
If I don't like it, then it's fine.
But it's a way to just--
a cathartic experience to try to move forward and try
to see what I could do more of.
A lot of my work going forward, I did a lot with fake flowers,
as you saw on the previous images of the collage
and the one before this.
I was just using flowers as a way to just--
something that was, in a sense-- it is a lot--
flowers are alive, but I was using fake flowers
because I love this idea of it never dying and always
being beautiful.
And I wanted to surround myself with that
and surround my collages with it as well.
I wanted to also get back into photographing people.
After photographing myself all the time,
I sometimes needed a break, and I wanted
to photograph other people.
And it's obviously a different experience photographing
yourself when you're-- and photographing another person.
So it was a nice way for me to explore
relationships with other men-- with men again in my life.
But then have it just be of them at times as well,
and not just me and him or me and this person.
So after shooting for--
all the time and just doing what I was doing, the pandemic hit.
And I think, like everyone, when the pandemic hit,
we felt this urge to be present and create work and be
productive.
And so for a good chunk of time, I was very productive.
During the pandemic, I was photographing myself
all the time just to keep myself busy
and to remind myself that I was still there, that I was still
capable of doing stuff.
That, yes, COVID-19 was this worldwide pandemic,
but I was like, I can still do stuff.
I can still create work and create art.
And it was a way to keep me going.
But then, definitely, there was a time
where, at a certain point, I just hit a wall again.
And the pandemic really got to me,
and my world just was not the same.
The world wasn't the same anymore.
And I wasn't the same.
And I just felt lost.
And so I just stopped shooting altogether,
for months during the beginning of the pandemic.
And then, after the break--
or after my huge break, I started working out.
I started working out from home because the gyms were still
closed and everything.
And I used to work out all the time before the pandemic.
And it was a way to just-- like another way to de-stress
and relax and get some aggression out.
But then when I was working out, I
decided to do a photo every day of a workout
to keep me accountable.
But also just to have fun and start taking photos again,
and give me a different subject and a different kind
of style of photography where I wasn't really using
different colored lights.
I was using gels; I wasn't really using studio lights
as much.
And I was just photographing myself in my garage every day
with these workout stuff and these weights
and these benches, and just trying out different things.
But also just working out and just having fun
again with photography.
And it kind of opened up my eyes to photography again and really
gave me more of a drive and a passion for it
again-- after not shooting for months
and just being brought down by the pandemic
and not feeling like it's just really positive anymore.
So doing the workouts every day, and--
like, here, I swam, and then I decided
to take some photos after with the lighting.
So it really was just a way to keep me sharp, but also
just keep me aware that I'm still alive
and that I'm still capable of doing things,
even during such a scary time of our lives.
The workouts also was a way to keep me healthy, obviously,
like mentally and physically.
Because I think with the pandemic, it really--
there was a time where I had a scare with COVID-19.
And I realized that I wasn't, obviously, again,
invincible-- and so COVID-19 could hurt me too.
And so I had a scare at one point,
and it really shook me again.
And it gave me--
I had memories of when I found out I was HIV positive.
And it kind of reconnected it back to me again.
How I felt so invincible before HIV, and then I got it.
And then, I was scared about COVID to a certain extent.
And then when I thought I almost got it,
it really changed my world again.
And so the workout photos also helped me dealt with my anxiety
and pushing forward and figuring out if I was OK
and keep myself centered and focused.
So my future going forward with all the stuff
that I've been doing, now shooting more often, still
doing stuff that I did in SVA, like portraits of queer men,
doing my collage work.
I want to explore more and do more things
and just see what else I was capable of.
So some of the new work I'm working on right now
is more of a focus on me being a queer Filipino American
and what that means to me.
And what do I really identify with?
Like, I really am proud of being queer.
I'm really proud of being Filipino.
But am I really proud of being an American, I guess.
And how all that intertwines and do--
is it wrong that I'm more prideful
about one thing than the other?
Or how do I balance all of it together?
And what these flags mean to everyone.
You-- when you see someone with a queer--
with a pride flag or with an American flag or just a flag
of their heritage, you automatically
get a sense of who they are as a person and an idea of what
their ideals and morals are.
And I have my own thoughts when I see someone with a pride flag
or with the Filipino flag or with an American flag flying
in front of their house or on their car.
And so it's a nice--
it's me exploring that and my assumptions
about people and my-- people's assumptions about me
when they find out I'm a queer Filipino American.
There's a work-- I cannot remember
the photographer's name-- but after I did this,
a friend of mine brought him up.
It was the work of soldiers who tied up these prisoners, I
think, or something.
And he referenced this photo-- he referenced that photo
to this photo.
And this was just an idea of me wrapping myself
up in these flags and, in a way, suffocating myself and trying
to feel connected to these identities that I have
and what I felt about them.
We see flags everywhere.
When you walk around, mostly you see American flags, obviously.
You sometimes see other flags that are being waved around.
Especially and obviously, during Pride Month,
you see a lot of the pride flags.
And so since then, I've been photographing every flag I see.
Obviously, I see more pride and American--
American flags and pride flags.
And I definitely don't see really Filipino flags as much.
But that's what I'm looking for right now in my work
is combining that with my self-portraits
and my portraits of flags as well.
This is a work that I'm also looking at.
Focusing on the stigma--
again, like I did talk about earlier--
the stigma that I face being HIV positive.
And also the verbiage that people
use on apps like Grindr and SCRUFF
and everything when they talk about someone
who's HIV positive.
And the question of are you clean?
Or telling people, oh, I'm clean, in regards--
so they're just saying, oh, are you HIV positive?
Or do you have STDs or--
no, I don't have HIV.
I don't have STDs, so I'm a clean person.
And so this is me exploring that in a different way.
So I made myself its own little body wash.
And it's like a way to, kind of, clean yourself of HIV
or clean yourself of that-- with this idea
that if you're HIV positive, you are not clean.
You are dirty.
And so with this project, I'm working on that.
I'm also-- this idea of this words
that people use on apps like this where it becomes racist.
And when they say, no rice, no spice,
and how problematic that can be and how hurtful
that can be to people.
And so I'm hoping to dive more into that work as well
and explore the stigma that I face as HIV positive,
but also the racism I face for being a brown person who
is Filipino.
And I don't know if this will play.
And I don't know if you'll be able to hear it,
but this is also just a video I did.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
[WIND BLOWING]
- "Person and Persona"
A person, multiple personas, some beaming and some not.
So many personas, connecting and disconnecting from the person--
coming together and falling apart.
Old personas dying out.
New personas being created.
Finding out more about the person.
Discovering these personas and this person
is who we are, ever-changing and ever-growing.
"Wind"
The wind blowing, moving through this world.
A constant force, never stopping to rest.
Faster and stronger, slower and softer.
Becoming one thing, then disappearing into nothing.
"Fag/Faggot"
I am a fag--
a cigarette or a queer person.
I am a faggot--
a bundle of sticks or a gay man.
Words to describe who we are, what our identity is.
The persona is multileveled and complicated.
It is always developing and flourishing,
while also becoming stagnant and static.
Am I a fag?
Am I a faggot?
Am I a Filipino?
Am I American?
Am I all these things and also none?
The wind, a force that's strong and gentle.
A force that is always changing and moving.
Becoming something new as times change,
but always being the wind.
Will I continue to thrive but also stay still?
Becoming something new, but remembering who I used to be?
I am a fag.
I am a faggot.
I am a Filipino.
I am an American.
"Person and Persona"
A person, multiple personas, some beaming, and some not.
So many personas, connecting and disconnecting from the person--
coming together and falling apart.
Old personas dying out.
New personas being created.
Finding out more about the person.
Discovering these personas and this person
is who we are, ever-changing and ever-growing.
"Wind"
The wind blowing, moving through this world.
A constant force, never stopping to rest.
Faster and stronger, slower and softer.
Becoming one thing, then disappearing into nothing.
"Fag/Faggot"
I am a fag--
a cigarette or a queer person.
I am a faggot--
a bundle of sticks or gay man.
Words to describe who we are, what our identity is.
The persona is multileveled and complicated.
It is always developing and flourishing,
while also becoming stagnant and static.
Am I a fag?
Am I a faggot?
Am I a Filipino?
Am I American?
Am I all these things and also none?
The wind, a force that is strong and gentle.
A force that is always changing and moving.
Becoming something new as times change,
but always being the wind.
Will I continue to thrive, but also stay still?
Becoming something new, but remembering who I used to be?
I am a fag.
I am a faggot.
I am a Filipino.
I am an American.
[END PLAYBACK]
So, yeah, that's just more of a exploration of me.
And also, if you could hear the last, I guess, poem
or whatever it was, "Fag/Faggot," and so that's
also just me exploring those words that
are problematic and can be very hard to hear for some people.
And for me, definitely, was really
hard to hear for many years in my life
as a queer person, hearing that being said to me.
But to me now, just, once again, reclaiming those words.
And using those words again as a way to fuel my work
and fuel myself and my photography, my artistry,
and moving forward and seeing what that will--
where that will take me.
And I think it's also one of those words that can really
shock people.
And I think that's a really good way
to start that discussion about my work and about those words
and about how we see people, queer people.
Can I ask, the video piece that you shared at the end--
Yes.
--so that's your original writing?
Yes.
OK.
Is that something that you often do?
Do you write in relationship to the work that you create
or [INAUDIBLE]?
No.
This is all something very new to me, the writing.
I mean, besides my writing is always [INAUDIBLE]..
As far as I do for my writing, it's
always ever just been an artist statement here and there,
or an elevator statement, something
just very general and really strictly about the art.
This is my first time, really, doing writing in regards
to my work as a piece of it.
That it's not just about it, but actually is part of the work
itself--
All right.
Thanks.
And so that's something I'm exploring and figuring out
and seeing if I'm good at this or not.
All right.
Thank you for sharing that.
So I want to remind everybody, you can raise your hand
and unmute and ask Eric a question if you would like.
Equally, you could also use the chat function.
So feel free to type your questions there,
and Andy and I will ask those questions for you.
So if that's your preference-- oh,
here I've got one from Dr. Romo.
Which piece or work have you found
to be most impactful to your followers?
I think my work that I think has been
most impactful to my followers has been my self-portraits
with queer people.
I think them seeing a connection--
me having a connection, a relationship,
with these men in my life and it not
being automatically sexual--
because I think as queer men--
as a queer person, I think a lot of people see that and--
sexuality and sex is a big part of our community and the way
we live our lives, but I wanted to also show
that we're more than that.
There's nothing-- I have nothing against it, obviously,
but my work--
I think, I wanted to show there's
a love and a bond between queer men together.
And when I photograph with them, it
just-- you see that strong connection with us.
And I think that has been the most
impactful for my followers.
If anything, it's been one of the most impactful for myself.
But actually for piece, I think two of the pieces
that I showed in the actual slide show, me with my friend
Isaiah on the stairs and also the picture of me
with the two men on my side in the red light,
I think have also been the most impactful for work-wise
from that series.
I love that Eric.
I love the way that series really
highlights the solidarity, in addition to love.
I mean, they're really beautiful--
yeah, they're really-- they're just
really beautiful portraits.
Wonderful.
Thank you.
So I appreciate you sharing today the ebbs and flows
of your creative process.
I think that's really important and something that artists
and art students and--
we don't often talk about.
It's not this constant 100-mile-an-hour kind of thing,
right?
Like, life gets in the way sometimes.
Your mental health or your physical health
might impact how creatively work flows and those great moments
and the challenges that anybody has, regardless of what you do.
So I really appreciate that.
Can you talk a little more about just the creative process
for you and how it flows?
Yeah, definitely.
So a lot of my work--
like, during my time, like during SVA, my inspiration--
I would just look at old photo books and books in my library
with statues and paintings.
I was just really looking for poses to help really inspire me
because there was onl-- there's in my repertoire poses,
I can only do so much.
And so it was a nice way to explore that more and that
helped really inspire me.
For other work, it's kind of just me looking back
on my past work and seeing what I've done.
And when I look back on my past work now,
I sometimes see different connection
or see a thread that goes through multiple pieces of work
that I never saw before.
And then I take that and start connecting it all again,
and then reshooting it something differently.
So it all kind of threads together
and connects at one time.
So that's how, lately, my inspiration
has been coming from.
And also I've been taking a lot of walks
and seeing things that I think are beautiful or inspire
me to--
and I'll just take that photo.
Like the photo in my slideshow of just the pride
flag in front of that building.
That's actually the photo that kind of started me
on this whole process of my flag series
and going forward and seeing what that meant to me.
And it really all just started with a photo of a flag.
And that really inspired me to delve deeper in my--
the relationship with myself as a queer Filipino American.
Thanks.
I also think it's interesting--
I love how you said that your prediagnosis work--
you were passionate about photography
but not fully invested.
And so then getting that diagnosis, which
some people would consider a challenging moment in one's
life, that really ignited this focus and ambition
in your work.
And so-- and you-- similarly, you
talked about that ebb and flow during COVID
and how the scare, again, lit this fire.
And so I think it's interesting to talk about challenging times
actually being a fuel.
It's not just happy times.
It's not just joy, necessarily.
Yeah.
One of the things that really--
there's a show I used to watch Queer
As Folk, the American one, and one of the characters in Queer
As Folk is gay bashed.
And after it happens, a friend visits him,
and he's just in his room and there's
drawings and paintings everywhere or something.
And he explains that he's creating--
he's drawing to remind himself and to show people and show
himself that what happened didn't--
they didn't get him.
Like, he's still there.
And so that stuck with me after I saw that.
And then when I got my HIV status,
that's why I really got that drive.
It was a way to--
photographing everything and all my ideas
and was a way to show myself that I was still there.
That my HIV didn't get me.
That it didn't stop me from doing anything.
That if anything, it really kind of fueled my drive
and got me to places I never thought
I would get to before my status.
Right.
So I think it's also interesting looking at these images,
you wouldn't necessarily know that you are HIV positive.
So it's not, it's not an overt part of your image making.
But being ill-- it's an illness, right?
And so, but it's not an illness that's necessarily visible.
And so I think there's a tension between visibility
and invisibility, right?
If you live with an invisible illness.
And so I just wonder if you could
talk about that a little bit-- the fact that you're
trying to make visible the invisible
in your work a little bit.
Yeah, just with my status, obviously, now,
like, my future work, I actually am really
talking more about my status and really focusing on it.
But within my past work, yeah, I never
really mentioned it unless you read my artist's statement
or if you were in a critique with my class and everything.
Because when you look my work, you don't obviously--
don't automatically see HIV.
It's not like I spell it out and everything.
And so going with my work, my HIV status in my work
was never really the main focus.
It was just a stepping stone for me
to really push myself more out there and push my work.
And so I really, if anything, I just wanted
to start a conversation about it.
And then so if someone saw my work
and want to know more about it, then it
could start a conversation.
And then I could bring up my status
and tell them about where that came from, and making--
that's in the sense of making the invisible visible for me
in my past work.
Where now, in my future work, I'm really--
I'm flat-out saying, this is a stigma, this is my status,
and this is what I want talk about
and how I want to discuss it.
Hi, Eric.
I'm going to read a question from the chat if that's OK.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
From Arianna, we have, have you found
that time has helped you connect with yourself
and found more inner love?
I ask since I believe that we should never
stop learning about one's one, especially when it
comes to self-love.
So.
Sorry if I read that kind of fast but--
[LAUGHS]
No, that's OK.
Yeah, I definitely have found that time
has helped me connect with myself and love myself more.
Because when I was like-- when you come out as a gay--
when you come out of the closet and everything,
it's definitely--
I mean, everyone has their own journey
and has their own experience.
And mine wasn't as dark as some people's have--
as some people have dealt with.
But there were times where it was hard for me.
And so that shaped the way I saw myself when I was younger.
And as I got older, I started to change things
and think about things differently.
But yeah, definitely, time really
helped me find more of myself and a love for myself,
especially with photography as my way of doing it really
helped me even more find a love for myself I never
thought I could find.
Beautiful.
So Letty has a comment, question.
She says, I really appreciate how
you honor the intersectionality of your identities
as a Filipino gay man.
Have you always embraced this intersectionality
or was it an evolution for you?
It was an evolution for me.
I mean, I'm always--
I've never have shied away really of being like--
I don't know, I've always--
I never have lied about my being Filipino and everything
or say I'm not Filipino and say I'm something else.
So I've always known I'm Filipino.
I've been Filipino.
But it's really been more recently where I really
started to put those two together and have
those intersect and become like one identity.
And so that's me.
I'm now-- I'm just really starting to explore that now
and see where--
who I am as, not just a gay man, but a Filipino gay-- queer man.
And what that means to me and what that means to my work
exactly.
And how I want--
what I want my work to say going forward now.
I have a question that I'd like to ask,
or well, we like to ask former Chaffey students.
Because, undoubtedly, we will have
a few maybe current students on the call and then potentially
others watching in the future.
Do you have any advice for--
or do you wish you had some advice when
you were a photo student that you could maybe
impart upon some of the students we have now?
Oh.
Yeah, so I think--
I don't know, advice that I would have given myself--
to a young Chaffey Eric--
would be to really build a connection with your peers
and with your professors and your teachers
and the people who work at Chaffey.
Within the photo department, I made
a lot of really great friends.
And I made friends with my peers,
but also friends with my teachers and the staff.
And I really built strong connections.
And I think I would have--
I wish I had done that more when I was at Chaffey.
I had a close-knit group of friends that I stuck with,
but I think you should always really build a connection.
Because I think when it comes to community college,
you come to class, you do what you're supposed to do,
and then you leave.
And for photography in class, I think
it's a little different because you
are forced to do more interactive work with critiques
and everything.
But I definitely would tell people to really start--
to really build connections.
Because you really don't know, later down the line, what
that connection can do for you.
And also, I think, one of--
I mean, it took a while for me to get to this idea,
but to really take up every opportunity
and really make use of every opportunity you get.
Even if it's just an assignment, like,
really make use of that assignment.
And do what you have to do to get that grade,
but also push yourself a little more
and to see what else you could do.
Because I've done assignments that I look back at now,
and I now see where I could have gone farther.
And now I've taken that idea and redid it
and seeing how to push it farther now as an older person.
Eric, and so because today is Worlds AIDS--
World AIDS Day, can I ask, in your opinion,
does contemporary art have a role
in the field of public health?
Do you think.
Yes, I believe it does.
I think just--
I mean, since art has ever--
since the beginning of art and the way art affects people,
it's always been a conversation starter.
Art has always pushed boundaries and pushed narratives
that we wanted to be pushed out there
to really change the world.
So I think art is just such a intelligent way
of getting your point across without having
to say much sometimes.
And so I think it would-- it's really good to have that
in the conversation with public health,
because it can really give people a better idea--
because you can explain something to someone,
but then sometimes if they see a photo or a drawing
or a painting or a short film about it,
it really sticks with them more.
And so I think art has definitely
a place in-- contemporary art has definitely
a place in the discussion with public health, because it
helps start the discussion.
It helps people confront things, and helps push boundaries
that I know some people are trying to keep up.
I have a follow-up question to my previous one.
I'm sorry this is a little out of order.
Oh, that's OK.
But do you, in terms of going in the theme of advice for others,
do you possibly have any advice for those who may not
have support from their-- for their families
as they pursue their creative career.
I'm not sure how that would affect you necessarily,
but if there's anything you could say.
I think if-- yeah, it's--
I mean, I've always had support by-- from my family.
They've always been super-supportive of my choice
to be a photographer.
And this career path I've chosen.
But I definitely think-- just also,
from my experience as a queer person,
it's also building your own family and your chosen family.
And so building that chosen family
within your peers and your friends
and your professors and the people--
and your coworkers-- is a great way
to still get that kind of support,
even if it's not from your direct family or your blood
family.
It's your chosen family that can also really
help inspire you and push you farther.
That's a really great way of looking at it.
Thanks.
Welcome.
Eric, you often, obviously, you often work in series.
Can you talk a little bit about why
you prefer working in a series?
And how do you know if something's working?
Yeah.
So, actually, I just had a conversation
with my friend Tony about this, about series work.
How I'm so used--
one of the big reasons why all my work is always in series
is just because I'm so used to doing a series of work.
It's just the way I've been trained with my photography.
With all my schooling, it's always just been--
have an idea, create a body of work.
And so that's why--
I've just been trained.
So all my work is always just a series
because that's what I'm used to.
And I just love creating a series of work.
I'm actually trying to still create series work,
but also just be OK with just doing a one-off photo that
is strong and powerful but doesn't need five more
photos after it to tell more of the story.
But in terms of it working, it's, for me, it
just-- you just keep shooting.
And I always just keep shooting and seeing.
I started doing multiple photos, different styles,
different setups and everything.
And then if I look at it all and I
see that it's not all connecting or if I see that it's not
telling the story I want to do or it's just not
working for me, it just doesn't excite me,
then that's just kind of the way where I feel like,
OK, I can shelf this for now.
Because a lot of times I--
I rarely just give up on my ideas.
I just usually shelf them and try to go back to it
at a later date, because sometimes I just need my mind
and myself to be in a different part,
like different point in my life.
Then when I look back at it again,
I think, OK, you know what?
I can do this, this way, this time now.
And so it-- just looking back at--
that's why my love-- that's why I was looking back at past work
because it just--you see things differently now.
Would you be able to talk about the role of social media
for you as an artist?
How it's a useful tool, potentially.
Yeah.
So social media has like--
I have grown up with social media.
But being-- using social media and being an artist has--
it's actually been like a struggle to keep up with it.
Because I definitely-- I have my personal Instagram,
but then I have my photo Instagram.
And so I-- over the past couple of few years now,
I've really started being better at curating stuff for my photo
Instagram, but also just still posting here and there
for my professional.
And it's definitely helped my--
having an Instagram is really-- or having
my work on social media has definitely
helped give me opportunities that
wouldn't have gotten if I didn't have
social media and everything.
And it just helps me reach out to people.
And people can reach out to me if they find my social media
and everything and find my Instagram.
And they get to see my work.
And it just really helps me connect with other people
and other artists.
So I definitely think--
I think social media is really great for art and a way
to get your art out there and to build relationships
with people.
I mean, there definitely are flaws with social media.
But I've definitely found a lot of the positives of it.
So, Eric, I have one more HIV-positive question.
And you kind of touched on this, but I think it's interesting.
How do you balance your own sense of privacy
with a sense of responsibility to visualize
a personal experience but a public health crisis
at the same time?
That's interesting.
How do you-- it sounds like you've come to terms and you
feel more--
you feel strongly about fighting stigma in your work.
I don't know if you could talk a little bit about that.
I think it was just--
like, I was OK for, like--
I mean, I've been positive now for almost--
oh my gosh, almost 10 years now.
But in the beginning, or throughout most
of the beginning years, it was just this whole--
it was like levels of it were--
I never talked about it at all to I'll talk about it here
and there to this group of people
will all know about it because they're
all in my circle of people who I'm doing work with
or art school with and everything.
To now, it's gotten to a point where what you
said, where I want to give more of a voice and everything
and make use of my platform and really not be silent anymore.
Because I never was super-silent regarding my status.
If someone had asked me, I would tell them.
Or if someone looked at my work and asked me,
I would tell them, yeah, I am HIV positive.
But it's never been something I really blatantly show
off and everything.
But it's definitely been a journey for me
to get to this point where I am really
comfortable with my status.
And-- not just comfortable with my status but talking about it
and wanting to do--
have it be more on the forefront of my work
and not just in the background.
Thanks, Eric.
So Roman has a question here in the chat.
Question and comment.
It's interesting how the aesthetic fits or creates
nuance in the work.
The intentional aesthetic you mentioned at SVA
was a queer nightlife aesthetic, which you can see,
but it also gives the nudity a different quality
or maybe creates a different tone.
The newer work without the gels has the same nudity,
but the tone might read differently.
Have you noticed a different response
to the work based on the aesthetic in your older
versus newer work?
And is there a different response to the theatrical
versus more documentary aesthetic or a queer aesthetic?
I definitely have-- based on just if I'm
looking at a general idea of my work
and if I'm looking at just likes on Instagram about it,
I definitely see that I get more of a response when
it comes to my work that has gels and colors
and just gets more eye catching.
And I guess for people, a lot--
I don't know, to not make it so [INAUDIBLE] pretty, I guess?
But I also don't--
I still feel like it's the same kind of work and everything.
It's just that now I just don't-- like,
some work has gels and some work doesn't.
And so I still feel like it's the same kind of idea,
but just without gels-- and without gels and everything.
In response to the theatrical versus documentary
and the queer aesthetic, I definitely--
the conversation is always--
the stuff I get is a different conversation
regarding whatever-- if it's a queer aesthetic
or if it's more theatrical or documentary aesthetic.
That's the response that I usually get.
It just-- it's a difference of question,
a different conversation that comes up with it.
So it just depends on what the work is
and that gives off the discussion.
Thanks for that.
So I'd love to ask--
you know, it's always interesting to hear
who artists are inspired by, what's exciting them right now.
So I'd love to know any artists or folks whose work you would
recommend to our audience and whose work you'd
like to amplify.
Oh, yeah.
So I definitely thought about this.
So work that artists that really--
I'll constantly look at or just people
I follow that I think just make really beautiful work.
And one guy, I met him when I lived in New York,
we connected a couple of times.
Pacifico Silano is a really cool queer artist
that does a lot of great archive work with old magazines
and artwork of queer--
regarding queer people and everything.
And just like the way he puts it together and collages it,
is really beautiful.
Paul Sepuya is also an amazing photographer
that I just love so much.
And his portraits he does, his self-portraits,
are always just so inspiring to me
and really helps inspire my work as well.
Jason-- I don't know if I pronounce it correctly though.
It was Boeckli.
He does portraits that are really beautiful as well that--
of queer men.
And so that's another artist that I get
inspired by as another person--
as a person who also photographs queer men
or photographs myself with queer men.
It's a nice person to connect with.
And one other photographer that I think--
I met her when I worked in-- or when I went to SVA.
She went with me too.
She is definitely an inspiration, just on--
inspiration in the sense that she inspires my work,
but inspires me to just go for things and to try it out.
Her name is Sinjun Strom.
She is just an amazing artist all around that--
if you foll-- like, you should all
follow her if you ever want to be inspired by work
and inspired by someone's drive to create work and everything.
She is also a big person I look up to.
And I talk to her every once in a while
to really just help refocus myself in my work
and find balance.
Because I think she's a really great person
to talk to and look at.
Because just of-- the kind of work
she creates and the stuff she does
to make that work is really beautiful.
Right.
Thank you.
Roman's putting links in the chat
when we're able to find website or Instagram definitely.
So we'll share that with all of you today,
and we'll also share it in a follow up email.
OK, yeah, Roman just found a Sinjun.
That was Strom I see.
OK.
Oh, yeah, Strom.
All right.
And then Jason [INAUDIBLE] we think.
We might need spelling on that.
His last name is B-O-E-C-K-L-I.
OK.
Got it.
Cool.
Great.
We'll share that.
Well, thank you so much, Eric.
Last call for questions for Eric.
Definitely raise your hand or unmute or throw it in the chat.
But I really want to thank you.
I'm so excited to have you here as an alum of Student
Invitational of Chaffey College.
Really fantastic.
So we love seeing where you're going
and can't wait to hear where you land next--
and continued flag work, potentially.
Yes.
[LAUGHS]
Seeing that.
Oh, good.
OK.
Ramon found that.
And then Roman also did include a quick--
or a link to a very quick two-minute survey.
We'd love to get your feedback.
It helps us to plan for the future.
So we really appreciate you all taking a moment
to do that if you would.
But, Eric, thrilled to have you here.
Thank you so much for your time and energy.
And we appreciate all of you who took time out of your day
to be with us here.
Thank you so much.
Please take care.
Stay safe and healthy.
Thank you so much, everyone.
Thank you.
Visit us at www.chaffey.edu/wignall
to access our full schedule of programs and our available
recordings.
Thank you for joining us.
[SYNTHESIZED CHIMES]