Every month, I receive a compilation of emails sent to my website during the previous month. Words sent by people from all over the world telling me how they feel about my work. It was with a mixture of trepidation and curiosity that I first approached these letters. I have become accustomed to hearing people speak about my paintings at openings, during signing engagements, etc…, but knowing the anonymity afforded by the internet, I did not know what to expect of this correspndence.
    Letters long and short came from near and far. Letters from people across the globe. Mostly gay men, but also many heterosexual people. People coming from diverse backgrounds and bodies of personal experience shared the pain, triumphs, hopes and dreams of their lives and lives' connections with my paintings. It was a multi-emotional experience reading those letters. I felt incredible sadness for some people so damaged by society and families, who found strength, dignity, and humanity in my paintings. I felt hope for the younger guys disillusioned about life and relationships who recognized their lives in my work. I felt emancipation for the many people who wrote of coming out and finally becoming a full and honest person, and how my paintings (reproductions, or sometimes just computer printouts) on their walls became a way of saying “this is my life”. I felt joy (and sometimes envy, depending on the day) for guys who spoke of wonderful and enduring relationships who saw their love in my paintings. And of course, there were the guys in prison who just wanted pictures to decorate their cells.

    In short, I realized that I had successfully translated my life, experiences, and observances into a body of work that was now widely accessible and experienced by many. I had touched the lives of people I would never meet, and they had touched mine. All through brush stokes of paint applied to pieces of canvas.

    In selecting the paintings for this calendar, I hope to have chosen a group of paintings that vary both visually and in terms of theme or content. The paintings presented here are drawn from the last year and a half. I had a solo exhibition in Key West, Florida in December of 2000, and another in Montreal, Canada in May of 2001. Most paintings in this calendar were first exhibited at these exhibitions.

    Although the last year saw me produce a lot of work with which I am happy, it also introduced me to levels of sadness I had not yet experienced. I thought I had, but I guess I was wrong. The unexpected death of a young man very close to me (who had also modeled for quite a few paintings) six months ago has been devastating. Painting became much more difficult as has finding any happiness in life. While in Key West for my December exhibition, I sat by the water one evening looking over the vastness of an ocean covered by gray green clouds. The sun had not shone in days. As the sun began to set, the clouds dispersed revealing a surrealistic sunset. More surrealistic than the sky itself was the feeling that my recently lost friend was sitting there beside me, living in me. It was at that moment that I realized what the spirit of a man really is. It is the part of a person that lives on long after they are gone. The part that makes us long for one more minute. The part that makes us human.
    I hope that my paintings have captured even a small part of that spirit, and that that spirit might live in you.

Steve Walker
Toronto, Canada
June 7, 2001