All in one instant and for several moments and days afterward, I felt this ferocious longing to use my body as a form of expression. Within a week I became quasi-obsessed with the sublime nature of the female form.
love, Me... Free
P.S. In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities....
..... In the expert's mind there are few.
Saturday, January 12, 2013
'Why do you do it?': Commentary from an Idealist Art Model
All in one instant and for several moments and days afterward, I felt this ferocious longing to use my body as a form of expression. Within a week I became quasi-obsessed with the sublime nature of the female form.
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
The Desiderata
My mid-twenties.... I never though it would look this way. Never knew growth and progress would be this... unpredictable.
My mom gave me this poem from, spiritual poet, Max Erhmann years ago and I still read it whenever I need to be reminded of how vast and beautiful life can be if only we are open to realizing its possibilities. Be open. To new people, new ideas, new opportunities and new avenues to happiness, contentment and success. I am :)
(The definition of desiderata is "something that is wanted or needed; something for which desire is felt")
As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and ignorant; they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Keep interested in your career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be critical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be careful. Strive to be happy.
Friday, February 10, 2012
Trying my hand with a bit of art...
I've always wanted to learn to draw and from what I hear it takes practice and an eye for proportions. So in late December I began to research the basics of figure drawing on the internet. After a few days of trying out stick figure sketches, I moved on to watching videos about the proper way to depict the female form.
I found that drawing lines and details of the female figure made me more aware of my own body. I often found myself moving myself from side to side trying to locate the exact point where waist turns to hip and rib feeds into full torso. Where breast ends and gut begins and so on and so fourth.
I could feel myself arching my spine to identify where sexuality screams fourth from where modesty left-off. Tilting my chin into my neck to explore the angle where bashful gives way to flirtation. It all intrigued me and brainstorming with a pencil was some of the most lively moments of self exploration that I can remember ever having.... needless to say.. I shall continue.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Monday, November 28, 2011
Florence Film Festival: Paolo Parvis's "Schi(z)zo"
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Rabarama.
“Write to her” he said.
I don’t think he knew until that moment that I was capable of feeling intimidation. “I can’t! Yet…” I tell him.
It has to MEAN something. If I write her a letter, it must be substantial enough that I am able to connect with her.
I’m sitting on the floor of my friend’s living room gazing at a picture of Rabarama, the artist who has claimed the throne as the object of my admiration since I first experienced her sculptures while walking through Boboli Garden a few weeks ago. He insists with sincerity, “Pero, te senti veramente!….. She is an artist, if she knew how much you feel her work, I’m sure she would want to know.”
I look back at the picture on my laptop. There she stands. Chin-up, arms crossed, covered in all black up to her neck. Face framed in ebony hair, dancing across her eyelids, allowing only a glimpse of eyes that seem to possess all the emotion of the world. The broken tape on Pandora’s box.
There are those women whose strength humbles you. The ones with disobedient eyes and breathtaking ideas. The ones whose power is conveyed as much through their words as through their unspoken disposition. Through their posture and femininity and, yes, through their smiles. She is one of those women… and I’ve never even met her.
I think her message is too phenomenal to just write her a piece of fan mail. “She probably gets it all the time”, I think to myself. I mean… How could people NOT be touched by her message? Mesmerized by her. She speaks of truth. She speaks of freedom. Her eyes, dark and steadfast, are strength embodied. Her words are defiant of anything that does not allow for the true expression of human emotions.
“Il mio lavoro esprime la negazione del libero arbitrio, perché ritengo che il nostro destino sia gia stato scritto.” She says.
She maintains the idea of the negation of free-will throughout her work, believing that our destinies are already written. When we are brought into this world it is not of our own choosing. Nor is our socialization of our own choosing. In that sense, many of our views of the world are preceded. Fed to us from birth like breast milk. If our parents are liberals, more often than not we are brought up with liberal perspectives of the world. It takes a conscious action on behalf of our own commitment to self-discovery to reinvent and re-educate ourselves. It is an act against the natural current of society and takes a silent strength that many people will never know.
My understanding of Rabarama’s meaning when she speaks of a predetermined fate, is that although she acknowledges the effect of the literal pressures of society on shaping a person, she believes also in the influence of some celestial or metaphysical power in bringing to fruition a predetermined fate. However, in my favorite work of hers she redefines herself. She has up until this point insisted that our destinies as human beings are predetermined, but in her work “Ri-Nascita” (Italian for “rebirth”), she moves beyond this idea to the next stage of evolution. She now brings forth the notion of individuals having a choice in their own destiny.
The Ri-Nascita displays the bold image of a woman, left-breast exposed, tearing through a covering that has overtaken her body. This woman as the caption below the sculpture reads, is breaking through a cocoon that has enveloped her. The cloth like cocoon is representative of the expectations and superfluous values that society has throughout our lives engrained, at least somewhat, in us all. The sculpture depicts a figure that has reached a point of consciousness about the existence of space between the person they appear to be and the person they realize they truly are (the person they have been made into and the person they now must become). After grappling with this duality it has made a definitive decision to shed this skin, and reveal its true naked self.
As the woman tears through the shell, she is committing a definitive act. Ripping through metaphorical restraints like a shark through a net, she is shedding all of the expectations and values of a world that has defined her as she no longer chooses to define herself. It is a symbol of freedom. It is a birth of choice. It is a being, more specifically a woman, refusing to be bound. It is a determined statement of and demand for independence of thought and ideology. To the world and more importantly, I presume, to the self. It is, in short, the proactive self- realization that only our wildest dreams are made of.
Love, Me... Free
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
l'arte is art is l'arte... and I love it all.
Monday, October 31, 2011
The Portrait: Me through her eyes (Me attraverso i suoi occhi)
I look at the canvas and wonder to myself “Do I really look that mean?!”. The sad part: I already know the answer…
Her hands are flying wildly across the paper. She’s broken three pencil points so far and snapped a crayon in half. Casualties of war, she discards them and continues, unwavered. She jumps up, frantically and shuffles to the living room to find a marker that is just the right color. I try (and fail) to quiet my neurotic side, which is currently glaring at the discarded pencil shavings on the floor secretly itching to sweep them up. She comes back into the room and gazes at my hair with pleased curiosity. She wants to get the bleached and hennaed color just right but can’t seem to find the tools for the job. She settles on a yellow crayon which she first drags violently over the paper, then scribbles over it with a brown marker.
Guya Versari, a teacher and trained painter, is a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts of Florence under the guidance of the art critic Capocchini with a thesis on “Futurism: Boccioni and Marinetti”. But to me, she’s the mother of a good friend. A peculiar and artsy woman in appearance, I find out later from a mutual friend, that she is nearly blind but paints more of what she senses spiritually in a person than what she sees visually. I’m told I should be flattered that she wants to draw me. And I am.
I’m wearing no makeup, my hair is a mess and her hands are moving so feverishly that this spur of the moment portrait could turn out any which way. She reminds me to straighten my head, and I attempt to fix my posture. I‘ll admit that I’m a little nervous as I sneak peeks down at the unfinished work. I want to tell her that my eyes look crooked, or that my forehead couldn’t possibly be that big, or that my lack of eyebrows is my mom’s fault, and probably my dad’s too and that my brother’s eyebrows are perfect and he must’ve been switched at birth and…… but I refrain. Half because she doesn’t speak any English and half because I’m not quite sure who invited my vanity to the party. So I sit. And I wait.
Guya is known for more abstract depictions of reality. Her paintings reflect her own inner world, and whether that world is mysterious, joyous or painful, she’s always careful to be very truthful about her current sense of the world. My understanding of her is that she has a sixth sense so to speak. She understands a sublayer of life that can easily be ignored had she not this form of spiritual literacy. She reads into the invisible watermark that exists in the space between her eyes and your existence as though confirming it as reality. She portrays life through the colors and movement of her paintings so that they are to be experienced rather than simply looked upon. Even flowers, she says, are not only a symbol of life and happiness, but a tapestry of colors, of light, a vitality, a movement of lava.
I stare at the final product. This sketched portrait of me. There is something about it. This depiction of me. Sure it looks like me, but more, it feels like me. The eyes and the mouth. They tell my story. A story I never translated for this woman who sat in front of me and read me like a book, with words that neither of our languages would allow us to efficiently convey. I’m learning something herein Italy. Something that you have to learn when you don’t speak the same language. It’s that communication is so much more complex than I could’ve imagined. And that the most beautiful things don’t have to be said...
Love, Me.... Free