The Hastings Gallery

If you want something done right, you do it yourself. I wanted a high-profile magazine article written about what it means to be a queer artist navigating censorship, survival, and self-definition in 21st-century America—so I wrote it. This isn’t just a personal essay. It’s a record of adaptation. Of asking, again and again, How "visible" can I afford to be? It’s about the shifting line between art and pornography, between coded abstraction and unapologetic queerness. I’ve lived that line. I’ve crossed it. I’ve redrawn it in full color. All I need now is the magazine to publish it—and maybe Annie Leibovitz to shoot the cover. Because if I’m going to claim the title "Preeminent Queer Voice of the 21st Century", I might as well look the part.​

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“Tell our readers the speed dating version of your life before Palm Springs.”

Terry Hastings doesn’t hesitate.
 

“Born. Small town Minnesota. Piano. Marching band. California. Degree in Theatre. Composing musicals. Hollywood Agent. Fell in love. Minneapolis. Identity Fashions. Photography. Drag Queens. ‘Are you breaking up with me?’ Palm Springs.”

 

“What did ‘Are you breaking up with me?’ mean in that moment—and how did it lead to Palm Springs?”

 

I was in a ten-year relationship. We met in L.A., moved to Minnesota to afford a home, and decorated our townhome to within an inch of its life. Then his parents moved in to “travel”—except they forgot to travel. After a year of showing his father truly awful homes, they landed on a 4,600-square-foot "palace".

I was a waiter. I said I could afford $800 a month. I ended up paying $1,800. One day I showed up with a U-Haul. They asked what was going on. I said, “I’ve been grumpy for three years.” They replied, “Oh, we thought that was just you.”

We sold the house. My partner said he was going to get his parents settled, that he’d be back in three months—six months tops. After two years, I said, “I don’t think you’re coming back.” He replied, “Are you breaking up with me?” And by then, the relationship meant nothing.

That’s when my friend Marty called from Palm Springs. “Get out here. I can get you a job.” So off I went.

 

“When you arrived in Palm Springs, did you feel like you were starting over—or finally arriving?”

 

A little of both. In Minneapolis, I was shooting drag queens and cute naked boys in studio—tight, theatrical, controlled. In Palm Springs, everything opened up. I could shoot outside nearly every day. I could be more deliberate. More fluid. More honest.

Natural light is a whole different beast. In Minnesota, I was weatherly forced indoors. Here, the sun became my collaborator. The desert gave me rhythm. The shadows gave me structure. I wasn’t just shooting bodies—I was composing operas.

 

“Drag Queens and photography—was that your first taste of queer visual storytelling?”

 

You forget—I have a degree in musical theatre. I ran The Outrageous Theatre Company, wrote and directed shows like The Lovely Carol Merrill Christmas Carol and The Sound-byte of Music. It was camp, yes—but also the beginning of something deeper. A move from camp to High Drag.

Then came Identity Fashions, our clothing store in Uptown Minneapolis. Within the first week, Miss BeBe Zahara Benet walked in needing a dress to perform with Cyndi Lauper. That sparked a long collaboration—photos, calendars, even a coffee table book. All before she won the original season of RuPaul’s Drag Race.

So no, photography wasn’t the beginning. It was the next act. Queer storytelling has always been my medium—musicals, drag, photography. It’s all theatre. It’s all identity. And it’s all me.

 

“Take me from arriving in Gay Palm Springs to consciously choosing to create ‘less gay’ art.”

 

Naked men everywhere—on the dunes, the rocks of Joshua Tree, the pool outside my door. I lived in a gay clothing-optional complex. Heaven. The wind pieces hit first, then the water pieces. Hot naked men swimming through colorful fabric. Artsy and sexy. Full, saturated color—not the stark black-and-white of “classic” male nudes.

Then Covid hit. I developed an anxiety disorder and couldn’t work retail anymore. Marty had been pushing me to sell on eBay and Etsy. I tried selling “the art.” No one bit. But I had 15 years of male nudes on discs. I thought, Let’s see if there’s a market for that. And there was—a big one. I paid my bills selling $20 nudes.

Covid subsided. I had a business. Then Trump 2 and Project 2025 threatened to outlaw “porn.” Etsy caved—no nudity allowed. eBay got persnickety, even chastising me for showing feet. I’ve been shut down four times and reopened. Each time takes a toll.

So I pivoted. Photography was “bad.” Art was… fine. I developed a digital style using my nude photos—cutting them out, flattening with color, scratching in nipples and genitals, filling the background with crisp, clean, modernist minimalism.

It wasn’t less gay. It was gay reimagined. Gay disguised. Gay surviving.

 

“And then?”

 

The election. ICE. All my friends moving to Europe.
Fuck. Now what?

I still had bills to pay. So I asked: What happens if I take the figure out completely?
Landscapes. Abstracts. Memory pieces. And I was happy. I’m an artist. I’m happiest when I’m arting. But now I was speaking to a new demographic. My Instagram crowd was confused. (Also shut down—for being too sexy.) My Twitter and BlueSky followers? They don’t sniff unless there’s a hint of penis.

So I thought: I need high-end interior designers. But where? ugh. Ask me what happens next.

 

“What happened next, Terry?”

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I’m glad you asked.

It’s Gay Pride week in Palm Springs—yes, in November. I have a great night selling art at the Toolshed, our local leather bar. (Yes, we sell art in bars. Of course we do.) I come home to news that the Supreme Court dismissed the suit threatening gay marriage. The Epstein files are back on the front pages. And then I have a phenomenal weekend selling art at the Pride Festival.

Friends stop by to say how great I look—oh, and how great my art looks. I meet collectors who’ve bought my work but never met me. There’s joy. There’s connection. There’s visibility.

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Four days later, once I’ve recovered from the exhaustion, I sit down with my trusted AI and relaunch my gayness.

Not as a whisper.
Not as a coded abstraction.
But as a full-color, unapologetic, Me / Also Me declaration. (See front page of my website TheHastingsGallery.com)

 

“And now that you’re home again, what did you learn?”

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I learned that if I want to be the "Preeminent Queer Voice of the 21st Century",
I need to go buy a pin that says exactly that—and wear it on my shirt.
The one with the magnets, not the stickpin kind.
I’ve poked enough holes in myself already.