"That which does not kill us makes us stronger." Never has such a common phrase resonated with such uncommon relevance as it has in the life of James Randall Chumbley.
Born in Fayette, Alabama in the deeply-segregated South in 1955, Chumbley grew up in Columbus and Warner Robins, Georgia to parents that were mentally and emotionally unavailable, Chumbley – the middle of three children – was raised in an environment of chaos, instability, and violence.
His father, a U.S. Army Sergeant, was rarely present and physically-abusive when he was. After years of alcoholism, he committed suicide in 1973 – Chumbley, just a teenager at the time, cleaned the blood and detached tissue from the living room sofa and carpet where his father left this world with a discharged rifle lying on his chest.
His mother, once a beautiful woman with dreams of her own, soon found herself battling not only her husband, but also inner demons – eventually leading to mental illness and her own alcoholism.
Despite these obstacles, however, Chumbley persevered, eventually graduating from the Baptist influenced Mercer University in Macon, GA. It was here he studied art and psychology – discovering and exploring his love of beauty and the difficulties and struggles often associated with achieving it. But it was also there that he began the struggle of discovering himself and the consequences of what it meant to be a gay man at a time when most of the country was still very conservative and unable to accept what it saw as a subversive lifestyle.
At the time, few places offered the haven, safety, and community for which so many in his situation searched and longed than Atlanta, Georgia – the city too busy to hate, leading the charge for social acceptance in the New South. It was for this reason, Chumbley moved there in 1981 where he began making a name for himself in the city’s eclectic, yet welcoming, art world. As a result, he embraced and explored his sexuality; this opened many new – and unfamiliar – doors to him, including frequent trips to New York to promote his work and take part in the city’s heady social and party culture. During this successful time in his life, for the first time he felt completely in control of his future; he was accepted, wanted, and optimistic.
But the party wouldn’t last forever. During the early 80s, Chumbley soon found himself a part of the generation that witnessed first-hand the dawn and devastation of the AIDS crisis. As with many gay men his age, not only did he lose many of his closest friends, he was also forced to deal with the frustration born out of a country that, at the time refused to recognize the disease and deal with its impact. Once again, he felt rejected and ignored by those around him – just as he had when he was a child. But this time, it would be different; he would not be like his father and turn away or like his mother and turn inward. Empowered by his talent and determined to make a difference and affect real change in the gay community, Chumbley transformed himself into a local leader in the fight against AIDS. Together with a group of local artists and business people, he co-founded ArtCare, an annual black-tie charity art auction that for ten years raised money for many Atlanta AIDS service groups, including AID Atlanta, Project Open Hand, and the Grady Memorial Hospital Infectious Disease Unit.
It was at this time Chumbley began to explore another outlet for his creativity. It started with poems about past lovers and short stories about life, eventually becoming an obsession to document his multi-faceted life using a new medium – the written word. His first book, published in 1997, a memoir entitled "In the Arms of Adam: a diary of men." Met with critical and professional success, it is a deeply passionate, sensitive, and raw personal story that chronicles his tumultuous and painful childhood filled with his father’s abuse, alcoholism, eventual suicide and his mother’s mental illness through the self-discovery he experienced as a young man. It has been used by college professors as required reading for students in the fields of homosexual studies; and has been referred to as one to the ten books every gay man should read.
In May of 2005, Chumbley finished his second book, a novel, "Before the Last Dance." Although more truth than fiction, it explores the issues of growing up gay, finding oneself, and coming to terms with the aging process – all in a community that covets youth, vitality, and appearance. In a way only he can do, Chumbley artfully weaves the issues that confront the young and the old through some of his own personal stories using two unique characters – each of their lives serving as an example of those at the beginning of the journey, and some reaching the end. Once again, his book has touched both the critics and the public in a very special way.
Still fiercely involved as an activist and passionately committed to his art and writing, Chumbley divides his time between Atlanta and Los Angeles. His art encompasses contemporary landscapes, abstracts and nudes using the media of oil, wax and varnish. Chumbley’s work is in several galleries and is in many impressive private and corporate collections across the country. He remains highly effective within several AIDS, youth and equal rights service organizations. Because he has many stories yet to tell and many images yet to paint, Chumbley sees these first two books as only the beginning and sees every blank canvas as new discovery about life, love and hope.