I recently became aware of local artist Susan Singer because she has been collaborating with Valley Haggard, whom I know through our preschool community; Susan is painting Valley, and Valley has been writing about the experience. Their combined works will be part of a show next February featuring the efforts of four such artist pairs.
Susan has been working exclusively on female nudes for the last year and a half, and says that the work leads her, rather than being chosen by her. Last night, my friend Amy and I attended her talk at Visual Art Studio during this month's First Fridays Art Walk. "Talk" sounds formal - really, she stepped forward, spoke for a moment about why and how she has created the Sacred Flesh series, then invited several of the models present to talk about their thoughts and experiences. After this, she spoke again about her process, her motivation for this work, her desire to see a person and not their shape and also to represent the beauty of their shape.
The woman pictured in Beauty with a Veil, II (above left) shared her thoughts about body love being the major chore of a woman's adulthood. She is a luscious woman full of joy and sensuality, and this is reflected in the portraits Susan has painted of her. The woman in Joyful, Joyful was not present yesterday evening, but Susan described her as a ballet dancer in her 80s who is just "over it" as far as bodily anxieties go. She owns her powerful body, she has lived in it and enjoyed it and used it in ways that make her happy.
Another model described her body as her "vehicle" and suggested that we all drive different vehicles, that their purpose is to get us where they're going, and why should we feel at all ashamed of the vehicle we drive? What does the vehicle itself have to do with the person who we are?
(At this point I feel like I need to acknowledge that many people do think that our bodies reflect who we are. Character judgments related to a person's shape and size are common. Our culture has a lot of baggage related to accepting our bodies, weight, and health...I would suggest that you check out the many resources the internet has to offer regarding the Body Acceptance / Health at Any Size movement. All bodies have worth. Health is an individual issue as unique as the body you live in. Our assumptions about beauty, size, and health are often inaccurate, even bigoted.)
Their words reminded me of how I fall in love with the physical beauty of friends while editing photos of them. Most women I know feel like they are not attractive, or not photogenic. I've had the opportunity to capture portraits of several friends lately, and without exception, I have found myself absolutely enthralled with how gorgeous they are, in both conventional and nonconventional ways. So often women admonish me to "make them beautiful," and I wish I had the words to convey to them that I do not make anybody beautiful, that they are beautiful, and that the best photos of them are the ones in which we see who they really are - their genuine expressions, the work their body does, the things that matter to them. It's not about shape or makeup or clothing or hair or even about a smile. It's not about PhotoShop magic or what camera I use - it's the beauty that you bring. I just harness photons as they bounce off of you.
And yet, as I said, most women whom I have photographed don't feel very beautiful. Most of us are very defensive about our bodies, apologetic for them. We find reasons not to be photographed. We put our bodies down even while we see how beautiful all of our friends are in both conventional and non-conventional ways. What makes us think that we don't look just as beautiful to them? Why can't we extend that grace to ourselves?
Like most women, I struggle with accepting my body. Even at age 17 with a slim size 4-6 hourglass figure and C cup breasts, I felt small-busted and thick-hipped, and not terribly pretty. What's up with that? And with that as a starting point, how is there ever any hope of my accepting myself at 35 and beyond, with an older, heavier, more broken-in body? When Cheryl picked up my camera to snap these photos of me at a friend's house, I was annoyed and self-conscious. I fully intended to delete them. Actually, I did delete most of them, but kept these two. While my body does not look the way I want it to, I know that in ten years I will probably look back and wonder what I was so insecure about, just as I look back now at photos of myself taken at age 25 or 15. I like the exuberance she captured, I like my laugh. I like the motion of the coin belt. And even in the fleshiness of my arms, there is beauty - I'm reminded of the arms of grandmothers and bakers. Capable, domestic arms and hands.
Susan mentioned that photographing models for her 12 Naked Men series was very different from working with women for Sacred Flesh. While 10 men danced around to music in the buff and she documented them, she asked them what they like and don't like about their bodies. They answered easily - I like my feet, I like my hands, I think my butt is cute, I guess my abs aren't so great. They didn't hesitate, it didn't change their demeanor during the photo session...there was no cost to them of observing and judging their own bodies, there was no cost to Susan in questioning them about their self-perceived physical plusses and minuses while simultaneously capturing them in photographs. With women, on the other hand, there is a cost to thinking and talking about one's own body. She quickly realized that asking women those questions while photographing them was not a good idea. It changed their behavior. Women's feelings about their bodies are much more deeply rooted, typically. This does not mean that no men have deep insecurities about their bodies, just that on average, body image is a much more sensitive, emotional issue for women than it is for men.
Likewise, nudity is more emotionally charged for women than perhaps it is for men. The models talked about their experiences with sharing their photos and/or paintings with family members. Some were proud and supportive. Others were...not so supportive. One woman's oldest siblings were excited and full of positive comments, while her much-younger brother was creeped out. Another women's friends thought it was odd that her brother and husband both attended the gallery opening with her. In another family, the matriarch instructed the woman who had posed to "just stop" and advised her that "we don't talk about sex." Does nudity really equal sex? Are breasts and bottoms really something we should be more ashamed of than hands and feet and faces? Is it really so horrible for a brother to acknowledge his sister's body?
Two women (who did not speak at the gallery) had posed together for Susan, but then had second thoughts later. Their concerns related to family reaction to their nudity and to job security. They asked that their portrait not be shown, which, of course, was frustrating to Susan, who had worked hard on the painting. At the same time, she wanted to respect their desire for privacy. Out of this conflict came an ingenious solution - the reworked piece she titled Mother and Daughter Jocks Bound by Caution.
I know that caution well, and I felt haunted by it while I gazed upon so many images of women's bodies. Three years ago, I posed for maternity portraits. Some included clothing and some did not. I really wanted to share them - I felt SO beautiful and wanted to celebrate that wonderful feeling - but I worried that releasing them into the world might have negative consequences. I worried that family members would disapprove, or that they would feel disturbed by seeing my nude form and would not be able to "unsee" the images that bothered them. I worried that seeing the images might change how people think of me. I worried that people might disparage my body behind my back. I ended up releasing only a couple of images. Two friends have seen all of the images. One, I know can handle it. The other, I wonder about.
Shortly after my maternity session, I gave birth to Xander, and his birth was documented by my midwife's assistant, Therese, using my camera. The photos tell an amazing story about a powerful and life-changing event. I wanted badly to share these images because of their personal import and also because I know that there aren't enough images out there in the world showing normal, healthy, unhindered births. And yet...would it bother people who know me to see me giving birth?
I felt so torn over whether or not to make these images public. I felt like the ethically right thing to do was to share them, to help normalize our ideas of maternity, birth, the female form. And yet, I worried. I feared. I made image galleries and kept them private, sending them only to people who requested to see them.
And yet...I've seen nude photos of a dear friend of mine. Some of the photos are simple nudes, some are quite sensual, some are even quite sexual, but it hasn't changed my friendship with her in any negative ways. If anything, the trust she gave to me and the beauty she showed me made our friendship stronger. I've seen countless birth photos, and don't feel grossed-out by them. I've seen Susan Singer and several of her models standing next to their own self-portraits and had not a glimmer of oh my goodness, there are her boobs, now I know what she looks like under her clothing. Not a glimmer. And as for family members and nudity...I grew up with three brothers. I've seen penises outside of a romantic context. It didn't change my comfort levels with my brothers and I'm not scarred for life. I even once ended up chatting with a dormitory hallmate of mine, who was a model for the art department of our college, while she was completely nude, and while it was certainly a unique experience, it felt refreshingly normal. So you know? If anybody is haunted by seeing me naked, if I don't have what they consider to be an ok body to show nude, that's their problem.
After last night, I feel like hiding those images is hypocritical. I will no longer hide them. Just as Susan titled her own self-portrait, Yes, this is me, I say to you: this is me.
(Gallery of maternity images by Angela Wright Photography)
And this is me:
(Gallery of birth photos, accompanied by Xander's birth story.)
I feel nervous about this choice, but I know it is the right choice, the bodies-are-beautiful choice, the nudity-is-not-shameful choice, the birth-is-normal choice. Anybody who has issues with it might want to take a few moments to consider why the photos bother them, and whether they might challenge those feelings and try on a different perspective. Still, it's very strange to put these things out there in a world where bare flesh and bodily processes are looked on as something disgusting and shameful. If you look, would you leave me a note?
(Side note - I remembered writing a post about fat awareness but couldn't find it, and it turned out it was because I never published it. I've remedied that now.)
