Happy Birthday Bill! March 29, 2009

JUST thinking about how creative Bill and I used to be... How it flowed through our hearts and our collective consciouness... How opportunities NEVER were passed up... Feeling the sense of freedom--freedom to EXPRESS, CREATE, LOVE and LIVE! Remembering our PASSION for photography
and PURPOSE.
I Remember, and will never forget...

Big Ups and Happy B'day to Bill!

(excerpt from the Kaletra Sculpture Series, 2006)

I was helping my best friend Bill clean out his apartment during the summer of 2005 when we came across boxes of old HIV medication he had once been prescribed. One box contained several bottles of Kaletra. Kaletra is an anti-HIV medication in a category of HIV medicines called protease inhibitors (PIs). Kaletra prevents cells infected by HIV from producing new virus. This reduces the amount of virus in your body, and can increase the number of T-cells.

Bill's dosage was 5 pills twice a day. He told me he stopped taking the Kaletra, after starting with a "burst of energy", but things soon "fell apart". He had difficulty in following the twice a day regimen, and sooner than later, he stopped taking them altogether. According to Bill, it was a stressful experience, and the fear of taking the pills at work, being questioned by nosy co-workers about the reason for taking these five, bright orange colored pills. All of this was too much for him to bear.

Going through all the pill bottles, to remove the labels before disposing of them, we discovered something that was too hot to pass up for a photograph! Inside some of these bottles were congealed Kaletra pills! Funny, especially given the fact that Kaletra's materials state that the pills can be keep room tempurature. Yeah, right, but for how long?

Anyway, this discovery also got me to thinking about how many brotha's in the community don't have or know how to access medication or healthcare. Worse yet, according to the Center for Disease Control, when it comes to HIV in the African-American (MSM) community, black men account for 46% of HIV infection! A startling number that at this rate, is bound to continue rising!

I was struck with a creative spark when I saw all these orange pills stuck together and went for my camera and began styling the impromptu still life shoot! With Bill's assistance, we documented an important chapter in his life, and journeyed through the process of letting go and forgiving oneself.


Kaletra pills against the basil plant, 2006