Within the hold of ( ) — Lois Bielefeld

within the hold of ( )

Friendships can be ambiguous: passing or lifelong, intimate or surface, lacking the roadmap and prescribed behaviors of family. But what happens when we seek more from our friendships? When we ask our friends to fill the void of familial acceptance, to be the support our families of origin fail to provide? This series takes that question as its territory, insisting on the complexity, vulnerability, and raw beauty of connections often forged in mutual necessity.

within the hold of ( ) is a large-scale photographic tableau series depicting queer chosen family. The title gestures toward what chosen family holds and what holds us, the space inside the parentheses both protected and unfinished.

The term "chosen family" was documented and popularized by anthropologist Kath Weston in her 1991 book, Families We Choose: Lesbians, Gays, Kinship. Her research describes the way queers who banded together shared resources, co-parented children, and supported each other, notably during the AIDS crisis. Although "chosen" implies freely selected, the reality is some individuals have no say in the matter, cut off by biological family rejection. Creating family groups can ensure care, acceptance, belonging, and safety, and it means individuals can build their own roles and responsibilities rather than relying on hetero-gendered norms. To be clear, chosen families are not utopian. Like biological families, they are complicated and complex, and can carry curious residual or persistent power dynamics more consistent with heteronormative family structures.

Each photograph is built collaboratively over three to five months. Participants are co-collaborators: they shape the narrative, determine casting, select the objects that fill the frame, and write the narrative title with help if desired.

Kevin and I (Andrew) moved to Milwaukee from Spokane in 2022. Tom and Brendan were the first of the Gaggle we met, most were already friends. I remember that first brunch at Larry and Dan's: everyone dressed dapper, fire lit, constantly switching seats to chat everyone up.

We're the Gay Gaggle. We are twelve long-term partnered gay men, mostly transplants spanning five decades (youngest 35, oldest 71), but mostly retired and shedding skin to stake claim on this next chapter. All navigating a new place together, all curious, calendars overflowing with scheduled plentitude. We're at the age where we can choose each other, grow old together, build a strong foundation before the leaning-on-each-other truly begins. Bruce already had a stroke, and he and Luis aren’t letting that stop them, and Kevin and I are no strangers to Kev’s Parkinson's.

None of us have ever had this abundance of queer community before. We're gay men who remember when 'queer' was a bad word, who grew up with AIDS as part of the landscape, and to live openly was unacceptable. Franky and Nate represent a generational shift. Nate was embraced when he came out to his football teammates, kids he'd known since grade school. Tom, by contrast, wore many hats through his career in K-12 education, each representing a job where institutionalized homophobia meant concealing who he was.

Hospitality is the pillar that holds us: Larry's gift of abundance as a love language, expressed through feasting and maximalism. We love to cook, eat, explore culture. But there are also meaningful acts of service. Phu and John helped organize two sandwich-making events where we made 575 sandwiches together for Milwaukee’s Guest House. Everyone has a creative edge and the command to initiate, a Type A energy for doing and shape-shifting, forged in a different universe, one where coming out meant something else entirely. 2025

“Every house feels empty until we’ve sung in it.

I remember when LT, Charl, Shannon, and I sat on the wood floor of Marcel and Katie’s bare cottage house—cleared of everything, save for an air mattress and plastic cups for wine. They were moving away from Santa Barbara, which we had all called home for more than half a decade. I played Marcel’s guitar, and we sang ‘Slip Sliding Away.’ It had been an era of talent show birthday parties; orphan Thanksgiving dinners where guests sometimes sat on ottomans pulled up to the extended table because we ran out of chairs; and so many a cappella sing-a-longs, piled into the mellow yellow Volkswagen bug convertible as we traveled up and down the Central Coast for my gigs. (‘Cecilia’ is the best late-night song for a winding drive down the 101. The claps keep you awake.) We gathered for CSA dinners every Wednesday. Sometimes the leeks were enormous. Often the meals were delicious. Always it felt familial.

On Christmas night ten years later, Jane and I sit singing together on the green rug in the soft room of the 1885 Victorian that Shannon and I bought in 2017–before the world shut down; before we said yes to parenting three babies, and said goodbye to two; before baby Djuna chose her own name by giggling approval. Lois and Jackie are here, but LT is in Boston with Jessica, and Charlotte is in Pittsburgh with Blane and their kids, and Que’Marion is somewhere with his mama, and Hadley with her grandparents, and Djuna is in her bed upstairs sleeping. Shannon and Caitlin hold hands on the chairs, brought in from the dining table, still strewn with dishes from the now annual holiday Puttanesca feast. It will be another two years before Caitlin will bring her flute to Christmas sing-a-long and make me wonder why ‘Carol of the Bells’ isn’t always led by the woodwind section. Lois’ daughter Lydia habitually takes the sectional next to her mom and Jackie—Lois playing Djuna’s tambourine and always promising to bring their flute next year. They request ‘Laid’ by James, and it’s our most energetic cover of the evening. Jackie looks up lyrics on her phone and for when we get stuck. Everyone here is my family, and Jane is my love, and I know that tonight she is missing Adam.

If this were a narrative, I’d have to tell you all the details of the moves and marriages and separations and foster and adoption trainings that transpired over 10 years. Of falling in love, unexpectedly. Of fights and of forgiveness. But this is a sing-a-long. And a sing-a-long is really just one long moment of fullness and joy and heartbreak, and all the things that are possible with a flute and a guitar and a mandolin and lyrics on a phone.

And now it’s a beastly hot day in June, and Lois has set up their camera in the ‘Little House,’ as we’ve dubbed it. It sits 15-feet from the big Victorian, and it is 150 years old. We don’t, any of us, quite know what it will become, yet. Shannon tore away four layers of carpeting during demo. The bottom layer was a tapestry of wool rectangles hand sewn together by someone from a different time, who crafted a perfectly aligned pattern of now faded red and pink flowers. We are rebuilding our home together for our family. Starting back at the studs. Sturdy old-growth wood.” - Kat 2026

Rice, Beans, and Chicken Wings

Wyd / Wyd tomorrow night? My friend is taking down my nails and we’re going to Dream Lab, wanna come? / What I look like hanging out at Dream Lab? I’m too coo for school / Can you suck my balls, tf? / Oh, so I’m a hater and y’all not haters too? / I know a fellow fairy ain’t talking. / Thanks for getting me out the house. / Good morning. / Good night, I’ll see you tomorrow. / Are you okay, G? / What do you need? / Let me know if you want me to deliver food or coffee to you at any point. / YOU OVER THERE BAKING PILLSBURY COOKIES, HOE? / Dude had anxiety. / YOU BOGUS. WHAT IF I DID? / Bro, don’t screenshot my crow’s feet like that. I should have you tossed in the snow. / Fartnoise. / Not too much on Arthouse cinema. / Send me my $22 since you out here treating bitches to quesadillas. / Tf does vocal stimming mean to a grown ass married Latinx woman? You screamt? / But y’all don’t want to read Socialist Reconstruction. / There’s definitely mad contradictions amongst the many liberation intersections. / (He needs to) cleanse his rose quartz butt plug. / Wyd tomorrow? I called in so I can sleep. / Are you getting enough sleep? Enough food? Enough sunlight? / Might go to Dream Lab when they open… I’M JUST SAYING. / Brooooo, I love y’all. Thank you for contributing and I look forward to our work and friendship together, comrades. / In front of my FUCK ICE sign? / I went to my first protest against I.C.E. with Yessica / (I got the flu.) My first full week of being 30. No dick. No bitches. No money. / We get it. You have a husband. / We got mad old people at this march of thousands. Like me. / What y’all wearing? / Not gonna lie, I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about / Annoying head ass / I love y’all. / Even though y’all never wanna read Socialist Reconstruction. 2026

Sauna Sessions

We fell in love with saunas together. It began at 612 Sauna Cooperative, then a kit we built in the basement of our first house with a Bob Ross mountain scene on the wall, then the barrel we put in the backyard, assembled with my partner's dad. Over time, the ritual gathered our people around it. We line my snow globe collection along the pathway, places we've traveled, places friends have brought back to us.

There is something that happens in the heat. My partner, who carries a lot of anxiety, says it's a way to be together that doesn't ask you to perform being together. Do you want to talk or just sit? Would you like a sauna hat? You sweat. You cool off. You go back in. Someone passes the ladle. Someone brings the menopause book they've been meaning to give you. Have you started it yet? Someone says what they actually mean about ICE taking over Minneapolis, about living inside that fear. How's your new therapist? When is the protest? Are you taking the whole family? We have leaned on each other through all of it, the parenting, the politics, the way our kids keep changing and asking new things of us. Have you filled your own cup this week? Sometimes you cry until you need to step outside. Sometimes you are just quiet. And sometimes there is joy.

Want a snack? My partner says she would never be naked with her family of origin. Here, nakedness is the point, bodies changing, aging, tired and held. Should we do one more round?Love you. See you next time. 2026

Ozzy Osbourne died on July 22nd and videos of him and Sharon plagued the internet as I was moving into Taylor’s house and out of Taylor’s house and into Marla’s house and out of Marla’s house, then finally— into my apartment nearly two months later. I repeatedly watch a video of Ozzy and Sharon where he says– “Love takes time. If you both love each other, you don’t get off the horse at the first jump. You run the course.” I also listen exclusively to the musician Cameron Winter, whose album coincidentally is titled Heavy Metal. And a specific song that hums lowly out :

“you better start a-walking, babe

love takes miles – love takes years.”

I take peace in this. These relationships are marked by great gentleness but are also hardcore or heavy in a way…serious. I chose them at the same time. I chose Taylor because I knew she was up for the job of being my lover. I’ve had girlfriends before. I’ve had partners before. But never a lover, which is a mix of the two. I chose Marla because I knew she was up for the job of being my true friend. Which is a soulmate. I have never had that because many of my friends have treated me like their boyfriend. Which is neither a lover, soulmate, nor a girlfriend.

Tonight, we all separately entertain the idea of going out, maybe me more than the other two. Maybe dancing with a negroni in hand. But we all independently decide to stay home, with our separate pets – seven animals between the three of us. Taylor drops off my next hot meal. I pick up my package from Marla’s. Simple. Loving. 2025

Eli asked Luc to cut their hair, an act that cemented their shared trans masculinity and helped Eli cross a threshold into deeper Soto Zen practice. The recent dissolution of Eli and Jane’s 19-year partnership hung thick in the air. They both leaned on chosen family as they worked to re-envision themselves as co-parents and support their son. Eli saw the photoshoot as marking the profound shift in their relationship and the ripples sent through the chosen family. Jane wanted to participate, though struggled to find her narrative in the staging. The cacophony of children anchored everyone’s performance in the everyday. 2023

I grew up in Whitewater, WI (b. 1993), where, in my mind, I met Nykoli amongst space dust and Other Queer astronauts. In reality, I met him in the Gallery when I was 22. Josh opened the Gallery in 2013 (he was technically our boss). I told Josh I was going on hormones in person; I wish I had a recording of his response. I asked Nykoli to call me Adam first; I wish I had a screenshot of his response. Josh and I barely talked for three years, but he was the first person I thought of (I wish this photo existed in the past). My young adam, we really aren’t that young anymore. 2025

I love cupping my wife's breast in my hand while she fucks me, breasts Jackie has never felt comfortable with. Susie said I could get silicon replacements to stand in. After Luc’s surgery, Susie watched him settle into a confidence that added to her attraction to him. Jackie says she understands my fear. 2025

This is the purpose of the hammer at the moment

I’ll be home for Christmas / Instead of Jesus, it’s a lobster coming out of the Le Creuset / What’s the next decision? / Thank god for movers / Nothing is or but and / I’m trying to fall into this place with you guys / We’re All Living with Trauma and Pain / How are you? (Answered honestly) / The Daily Hammer / It becomes news / Burned side down / We are catering our lives / Three of Oysters, Eight of Cast Irons / A story about minor suffering that deserves laughter / I Have 200 Things to Add to This / Every time I laugh hammers fall out of my mouth / Did you butt-dial or is it real? / It’s real life, but better / You are here / There is chicken salad in the fridge / Raise a toast with your deviled egg / It’s really just gin on ice / Have some pimento cheese / Dial in the decadence, given the circumstances / Minor Potential Flames / Whatever it means to us / These are real matters / How’s your hammer? / A clementine, a macaron, the shrimp cocktail needs to be called out too / Some music / The strange map of our lives, an arterial, menstrual red / What we do to find each other, where we travel / The places: New Orleans, Athens, Baltimore, Milwaukee, Stone Harbor / Where does Tuscaloosa go? Is it first? / The Nook / Sorry, we just went off the rails there / Hold my drink in a moment of Temperance / I love you / The Grey Lining / We Barely Made It into the Non-Fucked / This is just what we have to do to live here / The Phantom Straw / The straw after the final straw / Hammer is the new brick 2025

Someone called this family a labyrinth of love, and I pushed back. Too mushy. Several of us go back to the '80s. Lynn and I worked at Milwaukee AIDS Project in its infancy in 1988; I oversaw finance and would kick her under the table at state meetings when she overstepped. When she had a bad mammogram, she called me. We still share our health care journeys. I have feelings now and blame her. I prefer my gruff, Grinch-state.

Catherine and I met thirty years ago when I dated her neighbor. I became her accountant, sat on her business board. We met through proximity but stayed through choice. I'm her #1 guy for frequent household moves and the only one brave enough to throw out her stuff. Our kids and grandkids are similar ages; we share that life course.

I met Diana in the mid-‘90s at a community theater cast party for a mutual friend who thought we already knew each other—different Brian. We became playmates, gambling buddies, fiercely independent together. When her family dissolved, this became her family. She's checked my balls, literally, and removed my damn penis piercing. Coincidentally, Diana and Renee went to high school together and then reconnected at Adam Bomb tattoo, the same place I walked into and saw Jeffrey.

Jeffrey and I got married thirty days after meeting. I used to give people I dated two-year contracts, friendship contracts even, but Jeffrey was different. Jeffrey was not put off by my crankiness and my hard shell, though it did create a falling out with Renee for a few years. I met Renee at Adam Bomb too. She, Mindy, and Jeffrey got into the collective coven energy. Mindy is Jeffrey's Renaissance Faire partner, so I don't have to go with him.

We come from different backgrounds and different professions. We gather for wine nights, early bird dinners, Thanksgiving… Halloween is a big one. But we're also there for the mundane, partners coming and going, all the jobs, and the serious medical days and/or months.

I'm about to start treatment for larynx cancer. Diana showed up for this photograph right after major shoulder surgery. A labyrinth of love, fine—but also contracts, crankiness, and someone willing to remove your penis ring or sit for a photo when you're both falling apart. We're here for the serious and the ridiculous, and we don't always know which is which. 2025

First off, please start humming Tina Turner's version of "Let's Stay Together." Our chosen family roots back to 1976, when Brenda and I (Glynis) were 11-year-old teammates playing softball, and we just celebrated our 60th birthdays together. In 1992, Mona moved to Wisconsin from Texas and met Julie and Chiquita, forming fast friendships. But it wasn't until 1993 that these worlds converged at Brenda's 29th birthday party. Mona asked me out the next weekend, and we danced to the tune that's now in your head, a song that forecasted our future. A few years later, Mona met Lisa, and the "Mona-Lisa" friendship was born. Lisa, a bit younger than the rest of us, says we basically helped raise her. In 2004, Lisa found her person when Nicole, forever nicknamed '24,' came into her life. That same year, our four-year-old son Jorin requested a sister named Maggie, so we returned to the cryobank and miraculously secured the last vials from his donor. But it was the boys, our Jorin and Liam (thank you, donor #5131), and Chiquita's Taylor and Riley, who stitched aunties and family together through sleepovers and inexplicable caper obsessions. The kids are grown now, but we still laugh about Lisa checking her watch during Jorin's delivery, willing him to finally make his entrance. Perhaps she's also marking time itself, all these years we've stayed together. 2025

June said she didn't have a great relationship with her folks, it always felt conditional. As an adult, home was just a temporary spot to rest and she moved around quite a bit. Andrew and Kevin were looking for a roommate for their spacious Spokane craftsman house, and they met June. She was a wild young free spirit getting her MFA in photography. Initially, they were just roomies but eventually conversations developed, shared dinners emerged, and then COVID hit.

They bubbled together, sharing meals and quiet rhythms in the living room: falling asleep in front of the fire, long walks, bike rides, learning photography side by side. They taught June how to eat together, how to care for a home, and offered financial advice, gestures that felt radically different from what she'd known. It took June a long time to realize that love didn't have to be conditional, with Andrew and Kevin, she felt safe. The age and generational differences between them shifted the relationship beyond friendship into something more familial: Andrew felt a protective instinct toward June, a desire to see her happy, to give open advice, that she was a daughter to them. They did holidays together, intimate and powerful Christmases and Thanksgivings, and these traditional rituals cemented what had organically formed.

June acknowledges that her generation throws the term "chosen family" around liberally, but this felt different. Choosing relationships outside your age group asks you to be different, to inhabit roles beyond friendship. After June took a university teaching job and Andrew and Kevin moved to Milwaukee, they've stayed connected through visits two to three times a year and letters June writes. Spokane gave June an understanding of home and hospitality that she's since crafted into her own version– a sacred space she created for herself, learned from the home Andrew and Kevin shared. 2025

“Mama, will you cub with me?” Adam asks Jane when he wants to play their game of Mama Bear and Baby Bear. They gather blankets and pillows to build a fort. They bring in tea candles and lanterns to light the dark forest.

When Jane and Adam's other parent separated, she asked her friends to help her resettle- not just emotionally, but physically, practically. Susie and Luc showed up with kitchen supplies, the kind of stuff you don't think about until you need a can opener and realize it's at the other house. Jackie helped hang artwork, transforming bare walls into home and new life. Chris gave Jane a spiral candle to remind her that change doesn’t come with a straight path but does come with a bright light. Mair and Lois lit the way with stories of their own divorces, their own co-parenting journeys, the proof that you survive this, that there's a fort on the other side.

Jane and Kat found love. They began forging a new path together. Adam still asks, "Mama, will you cub with me?" And now there are more hands to gather blankets, more people to light the candles in the forest. 2025

I first imagined all of us in and along the Milwaukee River, colored strings weaving a web between everyone, showing histories of connection, some intimate, some pained, some with repair. A queer baptism in Milwaukee waterways.

We're not a group, exactly, it's many of my dear people, and I'm told I'm the gatherer who ties us together. There are different bonds woven through: parent groups, old friends, the Lost Lake crew. Tony says I help create an orbit of community with a central focus of positivity, a kind of gravity. Charysse, an immigrant to Milwaukee, had never been into people, but we were the first group she wanted to stay connected with, the first with permanence.

Amanda found deep connection with the kids and families, remembers looking at Asa while he slept in his crib, feeling a nostalgia for the future. Amanda, Yalanda, and I were all pregnant at the same time. There was compounding joy and flooded grief that we're still navigating together. Raising tiny babies, we used to joke (not really joking) that our FOMO was off the charts, but Kat & Shannon and Annie & Julia soon followed. We figured out how to build our families, and then changed those plans again and again (and again) until we landed where we are now, all of us loving the babies we have and the ones we lost.

There were also different discomforts in showing up: lugging metaphorical relics into the woods, standing in a muddy river two weeks after a 1000-year flood, swarms of mosquitos, and some exes (we're not without drama).

What brings us together? We found each other and, in a way, are still finding each other. We hold on. We keep showing up. And mostly, we like each other a lot. 2025