Editor’s Note: The following is by a grant recipient in a program launched in 2022 by The G&LR, our Writers and Artists Grant, which was awarded to three recipients in 2023. The purpose of this grant is to assist advanced students engaged in LGBT-related research, and awardees are expected to produce an article for this magazine as part of their project. This is the third of three articles from 2023’s recipients.
PATRIC McCOY AND I sit across from each other, a binder of photographs resting on the table between us among stacked books of fiction, art, and memoir. I am perched on the edge of the couch, while he leans into an armchair. From the corner of my eye, I see a slide show of images, mostly of Black men, cycling through on a computer screen, accompanied by the faint sound of jazz. We haven’t seen each other in a while, so we catch up and I share more about my upcoming move to New York City. Emotion catches in my throat because it is still hard to talk about leaving Chicago. On this October afternoon, the conversation is colored by the pressure to record Patric’s thoughts before I can no longer easily enter the warm embrace of his home in Hyde Park. While we speak, one of his friends moves around in the kitchen, preparing fried fish that we will share later that evening.
Patric McCoy was born and raised in Chicago. His father was an artist, and he has long had a sense for the value of creative practice. Although he worked as an environmental scientist for his whole professional career, Patric developed an extensive photography practice, first using a point-and-shoot camera during the 1960s and ’70s to create images with family and friends.
Gervais Marsh, having completed his PhD at Northwestern, works as a freelance art curator and editor of Ruckus Journal.
