As Much Heaven as Earth

Deeply inspired by the feelings accompanied with the suicide of a childhood friend, this body of work comes together as a visual narrative of the coming of age memories and experiences of multiple queer men from the West Michigan region. "As Much Heaven as Earth" explores the life experiences of these men through their own words as they attempt to answer the question, “Why do we choose to stay?” The visual direction of the work is guided by the sense of magical realism that author, Haruki Murakami, achieves in his novel, "Norwegian Wood", the basic ideas behind Joseph Campbell's, Hero's Journey Monomyth, and the breakdown of the Five Stages of Grief as theorized by Swiss Psychiatrist, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, in her 1969 book "On Death and Dying".