Anthony (Helena Handbasket) and Dean with Mitchell

Two older men stand in front of a two-story brick home: one (left) has long wavy grey hair and glasses holding a small dog while the other (right) dons a mustache and stands, hands in pockets, with a worn cap and a patterned, loosely fitted button up.

Mitchell is a rescue. Anthony and Dean got him at Wags for Drag 10 years ago. His original family had named him Mitch after Mitch McConnell. Anthony and Dean renamed him Mitchell after Mitchell from Modern Family.

Audio Transcript

Anthony: Hi—I am Anthony Smallwood. Dean and I first moved to Lexington over 30 years ago. And during that time we’ve lived in Minnesota for 4 years and England in 2 years, but we’ve been back in Lexington for the last 13 years. We always come back home to Lexington.

The question: Describe the America you’d like to live in.

I think I’d like to live in the America that’s free from hate, around people with kindness and respect for others.

I’d like to live in the America that Louis Armstrong sang about: “I see trees of green, red roses too, I see them bloom for me and for you, and I think to myself, ‘What a wonderful world.’ I see skies of blue and clouds of white, the bright blessed day and the dark sacred night, and I think to myself, ‘What a wonderful world.’ [Singing:] The colors of the rainbow, so pretty in the sky, are also on the faces of the people going by. I see friends shaking hands, saying ‘How do you do?’ They’re really saying, ‘I love you.’”

Ha…

Sounds like a pretty good place to me, what do you think?

Lexington in the Time of COVID-19 is an artwork about people practicing social distancing at a time of a deadly virus. And also offering kindness.

Kurt Gohde and Kremena Todorova capture photographs at the periphery of American culture, where drag queens, discarded couches, and abandoned motel signs exist.