luke kurtis Archives — bd-studios.com

a map of fragments

A close-up, black-and-white image of a person holding their head in their hands, eyes closed, with a distressed or contemplative expression. — Still from *a harras* video by luke kurtis

i took some time to myself the past year or so. last summer i went to Austria and Hungary, where i made a conceptual photo-text work. i didn’t tell many people about it, because that’s what i needed—creation without expectation, burden, or responsibility. if you know me at all, you know i’m an introvert to the nth. and sometimes art-making in a public way is too much.

if i’ve learned anything, it’s that art is best when it’s on my own terms—when i don’t worry too much about how it will exist in the world (if it even needs to). there’s a certain rawness i’m still figuring out how to hold without smoothing it over.

i went to Japan for the winter—back to my beloved Tokyo for the first time since the pandemic. spent a few days up in Sapporo for the snow festival (bucket list moment), then settled in Osaka for a while. Osaka was grand, but Tokyo will always be the one. there’s just something about being alone in the biggest city on earth, but never feeling like your introversion is an obstacle. which is pretty much the opposite of New York—a city that dares you to keep up or get out. no wonder punk was born there (among other places).

Somewhere between Hungary and Japan (or, the update I meant to write last year)

The last time I posted an update—well over a year ago—I said I’d be sharing stories from Japan, where I hoped to shake off the post-pandemic malaise of middle age. That didn’t happen as planned. But I did spend a good part of the summer in Central Europe.

I did a lot of photography while I was there—including AURA, a conceptual photo-text work made from images I shot in Vienna and ideas I worked through while living quietly in Hungary, reading Walter Benjamin and thinking about how we see and remember art.

A woman browses a rack of clothes outside a yellow boutique with mannequins and a display table near the entrance. — A shop in Szombathely, Hungary

A poetry album 23 years in the making

Five years ago this year I published the immeasurable fold, a selection of my best poems written from 2000-2015. Several years later during the pandemic, I recorded audio versions of all 42 poems in the book. I combined spoken word with original compositions and soundscapes to create a unique musical and literary experience. Now I am excited to release an album of those tracks.

an AI-generated image of a robot deep in thought while reading a book — (by luke kurtis with assistance of DALL-E 2)

I like to ask ChatGPT to interpret my poems, curious about what meaning it might pull out. Sometimes I’ve even given it abstract and surreal poems, expecting it to hallucinate something totally off the wall. But, virtually every time, it comes back with an impressive interpretation.

I find this reassuring. It gives me confidence to know that if an AI can pull meaning out of a poem that aligns with my intentions as the poet, then I must have successfully imbued that meaning within the text in the first place. And I know it’s not merely copying what someone else has said because typically, I’ve shown it poems that have yet to be published but never even seen by anyone other than me.

So, asking ChatGPT for its thoughts on a published poem you may have read and sharing that with you would be interesting. I chose “sutras,” published in Amethyst Review. Here’s what it had to say, unedited.

An update from luke kurtis

i’ll be 44 years old this year. all the things they say about midlife crises seem to be true. it’s a thing. i haven’t been myself, creative or otherwise, for quite some time. the pandemic, middle age, and work circumstances all collided, smashed together, split apart, ripped me in two. i’m still trying to put things back together.

Celebrating five years of collaboration

When Dudgrick Bevins and luke kurtis met in NYC in the mid-2010s and discovered they were originally from the same area of northwest Georgia, they knew an eventual collaboration would make sense. Both were born in the same town, though from different generations. Both made art based on their upbringing in rural Appalachia. Both knew what it was like to be rejected by family, friends, and their communities. The resulting collaboration was a 2017 chapbook titled Georgia Dusk, followed by more books by Bevins and edited/designed by kurtis.

Five years later, both the lives of these artists and the world at large have evolved. But the spirit of their collaboration remains the same. The pair came together to record their poetry just before the pandemic. kurtis later composed the accompanying music. And here we are—five years since the original book—with a spoken word EP celebrating the artists, who they were then, who they are now, and who they are becoming. After all, a life well lived and art well made is in continual transformation.

Please enjoy the Georgia Dusk EP (and the book, too if you never picked it up).

cyberspace and the sea

I had gone away to spend some time out of the city. We booked a house near the sea because it seemed like a relaxing spot. The goal was to disconnect for a while, spend less time looking at screens all day. I took some creative supplies with me, markers and pencils and such, with the vague idea of, should inspiration strike, being creative in an analog way. And, of course, making photos. But I had no grand plan. I didn’t intend to develop a new project. So this is definitely a case of the work finding me instead of me finding it.

The drawings, poems, and photos I made essentially describe my experience that week. I’m literally talking about hanging out by the beach for a few days, trying to recover from a stressful time. On the surface, it’s not so profound. But it’s the mundanity that makes it relatable. I used that simplicity to tap into the subconscious.

After I got back home and realized I had created all this stuff, I wondered what I might do with it. I put together the video art and designed an experience meant to be seen in person, projected in a dark room with surround sound. I even set up a small screen prototype. The work created exactly the immersive and meditative environment I was going for. But given the pandemic, trying to plan an in-person exhibition didn’t feel right. So I began to consider what I could do digitally.

Three monitors showing the seaside magic video art by luke kurtis are the only source of light in the room. — small screen *seaside magic* video installation prototype

I’ve always been more comfortable in cyberspace, so it’s sort of odd I never did a digital exhibition before. But the pandemic has changed the ways we connect. Besides, I’ve always been somewhat reclusive and find it challenging to communicate with people in person, making digital spaces more effective. So, I hope other people are more open to this way of connecting than they might have been in the past.

It would be easy to think of an online exhibition as an inferior substitute for something else. But I don’t feel that way about this at all. In fact, I’m excited that I can beam this work into your home, no matter where you are in the world.

Please join me and explore seaside magic from your corner of cyberspace. I hope you will approach it with intention and feel the same sense of calm that I felt while making it.

The delicate dance of nature awakening

Photograph of interior of San Vitaly, from Springtime in Byzantium by luke kurtis — Photograph from *Springtime in Byzantium* by luke kurtis

How to see art and architecture without leaving home

I’m so excited to tell you about my newest project, Springtime in Byzantium. This book was initially scheduled for release last year but was delayed by the pandemic, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise because it allowed me to take the project to the next level. It’s what happens when you give an artist more time—we’re bound to come up with another idea! (That’s not always a good thing for editors, but when you are the editor… well, that’s the way things go).

So this announcement is not only about the new book but also a new postcard set and three prints featuring new designs based on photos from the book.

This project has been many years in development and is near and dear to my heart. It’s a bit different from what I’ve published before. It’s also the first title by me in the bd Artists’ Books collection. Up until now, I’ve focused on my role as editor and designer of the series. But now, I am joining the ranks to give you something of my own.

contact sheet — *Contact sheet of luke kurtis author photos by Carl Sturmer, shot for the original* like an angel dead in your arms release in 2000

Twenty years ago this month, I published my first book, like an angel dead in your arms. It was a flawed collection. And really, what else could it be? I wrote much of it while I was still in high school. The book’s imperfection and immaturity are why I distanced myself from it over the years. But a few years back, when I realized the twentieth anniversary was coming up, I challenged myself to reconsider it. When I re-read it, I found, certain shortcomings aside, it was a pretty solid piece of work with strong conceptual underpinnings. I managed to pull together a pile of words that simultaneously shared my experiences as a young gay person rejected by his family and the ensuing struggles with identity, self-worth, romance, and religion, and combined it all with a poetic sense of imagination.

We are masked artists and poets in quarantine and solidarity

I reached out to the artists and poets I’ve published to see how everybody is doing during the pandemic. Some of us are creating, some of us are crying, and some of us (most of us?) are somewhere in between, depending on the day. The state of the world is a lot to process. But we are here. We are well. We are wearing masks. We are hunkering down and taking the situation seriously. I thought it would be fun to share photos of us all masked-up, socially distanced, and going about our days. Here we are, the masked artists & poets of bd-studios.com

A row of rainbow pride flags line a black iron fence along a brick sidewalk, with people walking under leafy green trees on a sunny day in an urban setting. — Photo by luke kurtis

This weekend we celebrate Pride here in New York. Sometimes it’s easy to forget how vital Pride is because I live just steps away from Stonewall, the epicenter of where the gay rights movement began. It’s not because I’m unaware of the persecution against LGBTQ+ folks—I’ve lived through my share of hardships because of my sexual identity. But amid the comings and goings of everyday life, it’s sometimes too easy to become comfortable.

Poetry as protest and expression of pride 🌈

During the 2016 US Presidential Elections, I began to write more and more poems in reaction to current events. Before long I realized I had enough poems to make up a chapbook-length collection, and that’s what I thought it would be. But as time went on, I continued to write. I ended up with a collection of 40 poems, which I call exam(i)nation.

People often say politics aren’t personal. But that’s actually not true. What goes on in the political sphere affects me very directly as a queer person, just as it does for women, people of color, immigrants, and all the other groups of people under attack by conservative politics. It can’t be anything but personal when our lives are at stake.

exam(i)nation is both a protest and expression of pride. I hope you will be curious to learn about my experiences.

A Decade and a Half of Poetry: New book! New music!

These new releases have been a long time coming! Over fifteen years in the making! Finally here, the immeasurable fold: selected poems 2000-2015 is out now! Get a preview of the original drawings from the book above!

As a bonus, obscure mechanics, my first full-length album which I originally released on my website in 2008, has been remastered with bonus tracks and is available wherever you like to get your music (including embedded below)!