Rupert Kinnard

"I am firmly committed to living my life as a black gay male paraplegic so you don't have to." --Rupert Kinnard.

This is Rupert Kinnard, graphic artist, political activist, humorist, and local hero with eyelashes to die for, who I met at a wonderful "Antonia's Table" party today. (That's a summer outdoor feast of friendship and food, based on the film Antonia's Line, 1.5 minute trailer here.)

You can learn more about Rupert here. His idea for an interactive memoir site is described in more detail, and there are examples of his cartoons and more pictures from his life on the page for his Kickstarter campaign (now closed, he met his goal and then some; hooray!).

I spent several hours with brilliant, interesting, gorgeous people today, but I'm finding that having new software is very distracting. It reminds me of what it was like to do six weeks of rehearsal and really to know your character and all your gestures, movements, and lines, and then the technical rehearsal comes, with lights and costumes, and you forget everything. You stumble and stammer, forget when to stand and where to sit, and the soul of the work disappears. It all feels like surface. Eventually that fades and you come home to yourself in the part, but the distraction is terrifying and you think you're never going to find your way back because there is all this TECHNICAL stuff to contend with.

This portrait of Rupert, which he has given me permission to post, was processed with Aperture (I'm about halfway through the book I got on it), and with a free 15-day trial plug-in of Silver Efex.