Tom Bianchi and Jay Pagano

Tom (T) recalls his experience of reading a New York Times article about a “gay cancer,” and how many people were skeptical and angry about the article. T says he initially thought it was a for people to suppress people’s sexuality and was in denial about the illness.

T talks about when he started learning of Kaposi's Sarcoma (KS). T recounts when he found a small purplish spot on his body and thought it was KS.

T shares that he had a girlfriend while in law school who was a Christian Scientist and believed that disease was fear manifested in the body. T reflects on that belief and talks about his own health and why he decided to change careers.

T talks about buying a house in the Pines. T says HIV AIDS started happening at the same time he decided to leave the corporate world and pursue being an artist. T says he thinks this decision to leave the corporate world saved his life.

T talks about how he used photography as a way to support the gay community.

T talks about his and his partner David’s choice to move to California and be monogamous, in part to get away from AIDS. T discloses however that David contracted AIDS. T shares how difficult this news was for both of them.

T talks about his and David’s difficulties in managing David’s alcoholism.

T shares that because there was not much medical literature on AIDS, he started reading a lot of spiritual literature.

T talks more about the times he was concerned he had HIV.

T shares how the AIDS epidemic affected his work as an artist. T says if he could give gay men a picture of themselves as healthy men, then he would be practicing the highest form of his art.

T disclosed that David died in 1988 and he soon after returned to Fire Island.

T describes what it was like when he returned to the Pines in 1988.

T talks about how the Pines community responded to the AIDS epidemic. He says it was a time of collective heroism.