“Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.”

– James Baldwin

A new piece from the Facing the Music body of work, this marker portrait of one of my heroes happened quickly. Baldwin was one of the greats, a complex human who knew and spoke his truth with articulate passion and certainty. Because of the racial and sexual prejudices of his homeland, the United States, he moved to France in 1948, shortly after his literary career began, and spent most of his life there. His work is perpetually inspiring and relevant, his word like a secular gospel.