Loving Keith Haring

A Video Tribute

KEITH HARING
(May 4, 1958 – February 16, 1990)
haring.com

To celebrate Keith Haring’s birthday, I made a little montage and posted it on our YouTube channel this morning. We love and miss this guy so much. Often wonder how he would have evolved. As an artist and a man.

Keith Haring is a personal art hero. We first “met” when Charles Osgood did the short feature on him for CBS Sunday. I was just a kid when I watched it (while my parents were busy doing other Sunday morning stuff. Even then I knew I wanted to be like Keith when I grew up. Even then I knew we had a lot in common.

As I got older and he became a household name, Keith Haring inspired me to come out of the closet, get into art, and eventually practice safe(r) sex.

I’m still sad about that last part. Not because I have anything against safe sex. But I do hold everything against those in power for watching and doing little to nothing to help those with AIDS fight the disease…and the stigma surrounding it. Then and now.

Part of Keith’s legacy is he fought as hard and as long as he could to live. And to work. He left his mark around the world in those last years of his life. Figuratively and literally.

I could go on, but I want to celebrate Keith some more by getting back to work. Like he would have done and wanted.

Thanks for reading!
Clint

P.S. I remember buying an “original” version of this shirt from the NYC Don’t Panic store, circa 1994. I wore it to my first gay pride parade. I’d wear it with pride any day.