just justin

Achilles and Patroclus

Artur Grucela, Cold Beer, Beautiful Boys, 2023

...In those Autumn days of 1978, I had turned 18 and was in search of freedom and adventure and found myself at an artist’s studio in a town was then “Dead Bank”. It all seems so charmingly bohemian as I look back upon it now. Grace Graupe Pillard was a talented young artist challenging me to look straight ahead as my shyness prevented it. I was Richie until Grace told me I was much too handsome for Richie and then I became Richard (as I have remained). It was my coming of age tale, a shaking off of suburban dust and understanding the outsider, me. I was learning and creating myself to be who I wanted to be. I stood naked and a bit unsure, unaccustomed to this new authenticity before the age of New wave and the dying days of Disco, when beauty was in the sunlight streaming through the windows on a late afternoon…Richard Stabbert

Takato Yamamoto