Thirty-four watercolors spanning twenty-four years of integration

They all are asking one question: Who is this woman within? Every painting below expresses it in different ways: rooms, marriages, and countries. Look at them in order. The pictures do the questioning here — my words simply hold the door open. These are thirty-four of over two hundred watercolors I painted during this timespan. I value your comments.

---

2002 — Untitled My First Nude Watercolor. The first time I put myself on paper, although I didn’t realize they were self-portraits for another fourteen years. The body language and muted colors speak for themselves.

2005 — Absinthe Robette It was inevitable in my insistent questions about life and religion that I would encounter the muse in a bottle, the Green Fairy. This was painted one year before I would leave my thirty-year-career in the ministry forever. It was my attempt at a reproduction of an 1896 print by Livermont. It hangs above our bar to this day.

2008 — Lady at Spa I painted this for my massage therapist at that time, a lady named Kevin. She was a godsend to me: purely therapeutic, no sensual touching or happy endings, but an angel providing respite and safe touch during this incredibly difficult time.

2008 — Untitled This painting was inspired by a photograph above my bed in Noosa, Australia on holiday in 2006. This was my first unabashed nude, still a limited color palette but my style becoming more free. My former (highly conservative and religious) wife hated it so much that I burned it in our fireplace. This is my attempt to replicate it in 2012, after my lover and muse, now my wife, urged me to paint it again in 2012. I named it Reprise, and she hangs in our bedroom to this day.

2009— Untitled So much symbolism here, but my style is still very stilted. Who is the knight? What gender? I am the woman, I am always the woman.

2009 — Guilty Pleasure I’m not sure what happened, but all of a sudden the color and angst explode from this watercolor. And I am developing a style of sorts. Questions, so many questions, particularly about pleasure. I had just ended a torrid affair, hmmm, maybe that is where the passion came from.

2009 — Doubtful Rest Again, so much symbolism. I am co-creating. Writing my first book (pictured) called Sex, Lies & Religion. It was released in 2010 and today the book makes me cringe, but I still love the watercolor.

2009 — The Morning After The years 2007-2012 were the most traumatic years of my life. My first half of life was in fragments…broken.

Around 2009 — Untitled and Undated Is someone emerging from the dark night of the soul?

2009 — An Apple A Day Layers of irreverent symbolism

2009 — Naked and Unashamed My artistic style and an inner feminine that is shaking off decades of shame and guilt. One of my favorite paintings ever.

2010 — Barren and Naked The beginning of the end of the most catastrophic years of my life.

2011 — Ostracized One of my most powerful paintings. During the year my children, my family, my friends, my home, and my faith all cast me out.

2011 — Lady in Red Again, so much symbolism. A new lover, muse, and companion. This was painted during the days all hell had broken loose. Yet, this powerful and beautiful lady provided a model and a mirror for my feminine that has grown increasingly revelatory.

2011 — The Nearness of You Finally wholly embracing my feminine. The first half of life was over, dying a slow death.

2012 — Eve (Between the Pages Series) Wearing the pearls of great price, my inner feminine continues to emerge from the pages of my fifty-year-old family King James Bible.

2012 — Fixation One of only two watercolors in which I am a man. Now realizing I was a grown man addicted to baby milk. Possibly my most honest painting. So much symbolism.

2012 — Father, Forgive Me Again, so much symbolism. It is not hard to see the battle my inner feminine is waging in 2012.

2012 — Comfortable In Her Own Skin Be still my soul, look at her! This painting still hangs in my atelier to this day. So meaningful.

2012 — Serenity She hangs over our bed to this day. Finally, at long last. Peace. Tranquility is my true nature. But she was never allowed to emerge.

2012 — Pussy Willow On New Years Day 2012, suddenly everything changed. A new chapter in life that was blossoming with beauty and freedom. I originally named this Cotton Fields, until my neighbor visited and saw the painting and asked, “do you know what those blossoms are, right?” And I said, “yes, they are cotton.” She said, “oh no, they are pussy willows, and that should be her name.” Yes, the beauty of who she was finally emerging. This painting is in our great room over the couch to this day.

2013 — Untitled My ideal of the perfect feminine for my sensual essential.

2014 — Look at ME! Look at who I really am, not my stage presence, my celebrity, my breasts, look at the real me.

2016 — Forsaken My god forsook me. The god I was raised to believe. The god who does not exist. The renunciation has begun.

2017 — Rahab Harlot, Heretic or Hero? The scarlet letters tell all.

2019 — Christians Always fighting each other and anyone different. But some battles are worth fighting: we do not fight for goodness or perfection, but we struggle in the battle for wholeness, which I call enlightenment.

2020 — Saint Sebastian You may pierce me, mutilate me, tie me up, brand me, but you will not stop my fullness from emerging.

2019 — My Heart Hurts The loss, the gain, a natural grief as I say goodbye forever to my faith, and say hello to my wholeness, my emerging femininity and my generative masculinity.

2020 — Sunbather The church and culture’s answer to everything was a resounding NO! But my inner feminine says there are no rules, the answer is YES!

2024 — Stigmata Do I have to crucify my masculinity to let my femininity fully emerge?

2024 — Wholeness Fully male and fully female, integration, cultivation, and transformation.

2024 — Jesus and the Healer Imagine how unrepressed and free of guilt, fear, and shame we would be if the mythic Jesus had been healed sexually. This modified piece is after the artwork of Cristóbal López.

2024 — Body Language She still gets insecure, she still needs reassurance, but my inner feminine is alive and well…and beautiful.

2025 — Dionysus The god of wine and ecstasy, fully male and fully female. The ultimate symbol of a flowering wand rather than a dividing sword. May his tribe increase. Some say he is known as Lyaeus, “he who unties.” Some call him the patron of the arts. I call him an inspiration.