Firemen
The topic of firemen came up during a conversation recently. I told my friend that when I used to be a boy, I used to show an abnormally high interest in firemen. This was at a time before I even knew the concept of gay. I just knew that I enjoyed looking at them.
When I was young, I took a school bus to go to school. There was this fire station that’s on the way to my school, and it’s situated right next to a traffic light. Because the school bus was naturally a bit raised from the ground, from the window of the bus, I could see the firemen doing their morning exercises without their shirt on. Every morning, I would wish that the traffic light would turn red right when the bus got to that traffic light, just so I could look at the men a lot longer.
When you’re at that age, often schools would organize these special trips to visit the fire stations. I remembered feeling extremely embarrassed about signing up for those trips, because I knew that unlike the other boys in the class, I didn’t sign up to check out the cool fire engines. But I did anyway, just because. During those visits, I would hide behind the fire engines to check the men out, hoping that they didn’t see me doing just that.
My friend asked me if I still like firemen these days. I do, but not in the same way like I did when I was young. As an adult, I have dated quite a few firemen over the years, and they have always been kind and loving to me. They also show a lot of passion and enthusiasms in helping others, which are qualities that I admire. I respect that a lot.
All of these paintings were created long before I started posting to social media. I made them just for myself, and they don’t have a lot of high concept behind them. I just made them because firemen do have a special place in my heart.
Text prompts with Midjourney v5. Paintings, with assorted artists.
