Category: HIV

Artistic Bio


I created a profile for an online photography community. It’s sometimes hard for me to describe where I’ve landed as an artist & human being, here on October 14, 2022. That will change radically, or slowly, or organically, or tragically. More organic, less tragedy please. #NotMyCircus

Here’s what I came up with:

My main studio is C Todd Creations, focused on headshots, performing arts events + digital art rooted in photography. I like to dabble in many things, and stay away from others. I love working with drag performers, dancers & show choirs. I love nature, macro photography and digital creations that start with one or more images of my own. This is my primary professional brand @CToddCreations. Welcome!

My speciality studio is C Todd Dudeoir focused on photography for men + art that is body positive and inclusive. How I see my art in this space evolves with each conversation & understanding. ‘As I heal, I create; as I create, I heal.’ I love to explore art that pushes the edge of gender expression & identity. I create best in a collaborative setting so I work well with other artists, models & performers. I finding an intersection with sex positive communities, including leather, BDSM, cosplay and fem boy to name a few. “Never yuck on someone else’s yum!” “I’ll shoot anything twice, more if I like it!” This is my speciality studio @CToddDudeoir. Welcome!

As an artist, I explore art as therapy with an emphasis on stigma & shame, flipped and rescripted to reclaim its grip on my identity and self-confidence. Yea, mental health shit. This shows up in the form of artivism, a concept a read about when I discovered Through Positive Eyes. It inspired and informed my creative introduction to artivism with #CelebrateUU, in parallel to learning about art therapy as a tool for mental health & trauma informed living using harm reduction. This shows up in fine art projects, community art and artivism tied to my main studio @CToddCreations, under the emerging educator/performer persona Professor Peacock and under the pen blog CToddBeNow.net. Welcome!

Artist’s Profile, October 2022

I use a 70/20/10 rule of thumb that is aspirational or intentional. I have less control than I wish but accept that on most days. I’ve learned to just go along for the ride! Abide by The Four Agreements as best one can on any given day. Live for and in today.

At this phase in life, I think my work is 10/70/20 across C Todd Creations, Artivism, and C Todd Dudeoir. Again. Aspirational subject to change depending on what the Universe sets before me and the choices I make thereof 😉

Thanks for listening. This was really more for me. (Is anyone listening?)

Keep tellin’ the story.

Sawubona

Professor C Todd Peacock III
Community Artivist, Connector, Storyteller & Healer

#GameOn #CBD #TraumaInformedArt #TraumaInformedLiving #CelebrateUU

How does it make you feel? Art, Artivism & Art Therapy


This has become a bit of an inside joke with my therapists over the years.

“Yes, Todd. But how does it make you feel?” usually comes after I describe an event or situation with clarity & objectivity from my analytical left brain. It is harder for me to connect with the emotions and feelings that come up.

This question has also started to permeate my creative work. I’m a queer artivist – I bring my activism into my art. It’s also a form of art therapy, helping me to reclaim the shame & stigma I experience in life through digital creations. Music and art have the power to heal. 

I will also tell you that I struggle at times to identify the emotions in a photograph – or the emotions I want a given image to convey to the viewer.

When I was encouraged to create a piece for the HIV Is Not A Crime art contest, I was initially frozen in my tracks. How could I best convey how I feel when I think about HIV criminalization? What does stigma feel like? Where do these feelings come from?

Working in this space can be traumatizing for many different reasons. Thinking about HIV criminalization and the effects it has on my mental health can be heavy at times, bringing up sadness, shame, guilt and other difficult emotions. 

With this project, I wanted to rescript the negative messaging around HIV criminalization. I wanted this to be a positive message. It is easy to identify the negative effects of criminalization – much harder to find and hold onto hope. Hope for change. Hope for a cure. Hope for a world free of stigma and discrimination. 

That first required me to search my soul and imagine – what would it feel like for our laws to finally be repealed and modernized? 

Two words came to mind – joy and dance.

I could literally picture myself dancing, which is my happy place. 

From that inspiration came this piece which I call “Happy Dance”

I will be exhibiting Happy Dance along with several other original art pieces at the Phoenix Theatre Nov 3-13, 2022 as part of the Spirit and Place Festival. This year’s theme is Identify. My pieces will be part reflection, part therapy, part celebration! Join us on November 9th for the main event, which includes the visual art show along with a panel discussion.

HIV Modernization
Ending The Stigma of People Living with HIV
Part of the Spirit & Place Festival

About this event

Through an art exhibit and panel discussion, learn how people living with HIV and their allies are working to end HIV stigma by modernizing Indiana’s outdated HIV criminal laws.

People living with HIV often face stigma and discrimination related to Indiana laws that criminalize them due to their positive HIV status. This event features speakers living with HIV who are working to end HIV criminalization through legislative change, activism, art, and community support.

A visual art show featuring Indy-based artist Contonnia Turner, Jr. and photographer/digital artist Todd Fuqua will provide a backdrop for the discussion. Contonnia Turner, Jr. is a talented young Black Hoosier with multiple layers of intersecting identity who creates artwork that reflects who he is physically, mentally, and spiritually. Todd Fuqua is an Indianapolis-based artivist (activism through art) who started a social movement called CelebrateUU, building on the concept of HIV Undetectable=Untransmittable (U=U).

Explore the exhibit and interact informally with artists beginning at 5:30. The Talk will begin at 6:15 moderated by Terrell Parker and will include HIV Modernization Movement Chair Dr. Carrie Foote, and Co-Chair Mark Anthony Hughes. The Phoenix bar will be open, and snacks will be provided.

A partnership between Phoenix Theatre Cultural Center and HIV Modernization Movement Indiana.

Contact the event organizers at 317-635-7529 or cmacy@phoenixtheatre.org.

Walk-ins welcome, but registration is strongly encouraged by Nov. 9.

ABOUT SPIRIT & PLACE. The Spirit & Place Festival (Nov. 3-13) celebrates the powerful role the arts, humanities, and religion play in community life and is housed in the IU School of Liberal Arts at IUPUI. Learn more at spiritandplace.org

Register here

The shortest day to recovery


Today I’m grateful for life itself, for this day – the shortest day of the year. 12 years ago today, I was going to end my life because of the deep shame I felt at my core for who I was. Decades of societal and religious messaging that being gay is an abomination, a sin, a brokenness that needed to be healed. I also realize now I had some deep unresolved trauma from my adolescent and young adult years.

In 1990, I moved to Indy for a job at Lilly after graduating from University of Michigan. I was largely closeted at first, living in fear of being found out. I ran from myself, pouring my energy into my career. I sold my soul to the devil of money, status, material wealth. I did well for the most part – but sacrificed intimacy, community and connection for the corporate ladder. Eventually the strain of living a compartmentalized existence caught up with me.

At 33, I started using drugs because the alcohol was no longer sufficient to numb the pain. Over the course of the 8 years, I became addicted to crystal meth. In the last year or two, I was using every day – sometimes even smoking at work on breaks in the restroom. I was a functional meth addict until I could function no more. I had become irritable and aggressive at work, stemming from my using, lack of sleep and depression.

On December 21, 2009, I decided to take enough meth to burst my heart by sticking a large quantity up my butt. Whether or not that would have worked is immaterial. In my mind, I wanted to die.

In a moment of clarity, I decided that wasn’t the answer. I knew I wanted help, but all attempts in the past had failed. I called 911 and reported a failed suicide by lethal ingestion of meth. I wanted to put into motion a plan that I couldn’t stop. I also called my pastor Mike Mather who brought a small contingent of reinforcements to be there with me. They met me at Greenfield ER and took me to Fairbanks for treatment. That act of presence is one I’ll never forget.

It would be another 8 years before I finally put the pipe down in 2018. In those 8 years, I wrestled with my demons. I also went through a series of losses. I was fired from my 19 year career at Lilly in 2010 because I was arrested based on what the police found that night I called 911. I blew a plea bargain and ended up with two felonies on my record in 2011. I was diagnosed with HIV In 2012. I lost my mom to a heart attack stemming from her untreated alcoholism in 2013. I was sexually assaulted once and robbed twice in 2014.

Looking back, that’s when I started rebuilding my life. Therapy has helped me deal with the shame and trauma, the isolation, the inability to feel anything other than loss and shame. I reconnected with my photography, and have fully embraced the artist and artivist in me.

In these past 12-18 months, I have found the three most important things I was missing: identity, purpose and connection.

Today I remember my roommate from Fairbanks who died from this disease. I remember my friend Graham Karwath who died from this disease. I know too many gay men who are addicted to meth. We don’t talk about it. We offer them black and white solutions that push them away. I was judged and ostracized when I relapsed. But I was also shown love, compassion, and grace.

If you or someone you know is struggling, tell them to hold on. Tell them you love them. Love them without condition or strings or expectations. Love them where they are at.

There is hope. There is healing. Find your way.

I’m here if you want to talk.

Thanks for listening.

Keep telling the story

Signed ever faithfully,

The Right Reverend Lord C Todd Peacock III