Rob VanderZee told me I was going to have to be willing to sacrifice myself for my artwork about Women's Body Image.  That made me uncomfortable.  I didn't know what he meant.

Today I started to get a feel for what he meant.

Yesterday I met with a publisher who is working with me to develop ideas for my book.  It was an exhilarating meeting.  She has great ideas, is a great listener, and isn't pushy in the least.  I feel like God sent me an angel to help me put the pieces together so that the book can come into being.  It was truly amazing.

Today was the first uninterrupted day I've had in the studio since I stopped tutoring.  (And I have to go to Chris's office party at 5:30, so it isn't quite a full day, but I've sure made the most of it.)  It has been fantastic to have time to explore and do things I've been wanting to do for ages.

As soon as I woke up, I couldn't wait to get up, but I decided to do Morning Pages first so I could blow the cobwebs out of my sleepy brain to help me for the rest of the day.  Then I did 30 minutes of yoga so I could get the creaks out of my body and so I could have more focus in the studio.

After a shower, I took my camera to the post office to send it to Canon for repairs - I was in the middle of a photo shoot a couple of days ago and it completely stopped working.  One of the pins that goes into the memory card broke and I have no way of fixing it myself, so Canon will have to help me out.  $180 - ouch.  But at least I'll have my camera back.  A friend lent me her Nikon because I had another model coming yesterday, so I'm not out of commission, thankfully.

On the way to the post office, I was going down Pinetta here in BonAir.  I saw a police car so I slowed down, as is my wont.  I was going 36 so figured I was probably fine.  I was quite surprised to see the car pull out behind me with lights flashing.  I pulled into the Post Office parking lot with the squad car behind me.  A policewoman got out of the car.  I rolled down the window and asked with concern if I'd done anything wrong.  I couldn't imagine.  She asked if I know the speed limit on Pinetta.  I thought about it and realized I didn't - I figured it was probably 35.  She said it was 25!  Yikes.  I said, "Then I did do something wrong.  Geez."  She asked for my license and registration.  I gave her my license then started scouring the car for my registration.  I had no clue where it would be.  I haven't needed it since we bought the car 18 months ago.  She went back and ran a check on my license while I looked for the registration.  I couldn't find it.  She said, "Well, you have a good driving record so I'm going to give you a Christmas present and only give you a warning.  But make sure you go home and find your registration and put it with your insurance information in an envelope and put both in the car.  If you have an accident you'll need them both."  I was SO relieved.  Here I was going to the PO to send my camera to get fixed, an unexpected expense - if I'd had to add a speeding ticket - 19 miles a hour over the speed limit - I would have been really upset.  Horrible.  I am very thankful for her kindness.  It was truly a lovely gift.


After driving home VERY SLOWLY (and waving at the officer as I drove by her), I came out to the studio as quickly as I could and started painting.  I worked on the new picture of Valley, refining the painting I'd done on her hands and breasts.  They look wonderful. 

After lunch I decided it would be a good idea to do some writing.  I'd told the publisher I needed some time to actually get words down on paper before I met with her again - a book doesn't happen just through talking, I don't think!  I wrote for about an hour about my relationship to my body and various things that have happened over the years to help me come to do this work I'm doing now.  It felt good to get it down on paper, though it did bring up some anger and discomfort.  Oh well, that's part of the work.  As the publisher told me yesterday, writing is a process of discovery.  I've already done a lot of this work, but there is always more to do!


After writing for a while, I decided to do something I'd been wanting to do for quite a while.  The phrase from Rob VanderZee is applicable here.  My interpretation of "sacrificing myself" is to photograph myself and relentless draw what I see.  I started with my belly since that's the part of my body I feel least comfortable with.  I photographed it from all sides in heavy shadow.  This is a pencil drawing I did from one photo.  I plan to do more over the course of the month. 

I also photographed my breasts and drew one of those.  It looks a bit imbalanced in this drawing.  I probably need to go back into it tomorrow.  I'm not going to show it here because it simply isn't well done enough, but eventually I'll get it and will post it.

In addition to my breasts and belly, I thought it might be powerful to photograph my face.  Since I'm the one writing this blog, I get to choose which picture I show (!), so I'm showing one of the ones I find attractive.  I took plenty where I was finding tears and laughter and various feelings.  It was powerful looking through them and seeing myself so clearly.  It's hard to deny what the camera sees, unlike when one looks in the mirror.  I can fool myself in all kinds of ways there.  I think I generally look pretty young, but there's no denying that I have a lot of wrinkles on my face.  I kind of like them and the character they show, but I know I'm not supposed to like them.



I was helped greatly by a 9-year-old student I had when I taught German as a 23-year-old in Austria.  She looked at me and said, "Frau Kuli (her nickname for me), you're going to have the most wonderful wrinkles when you get older because you have such a beautiful smile."  I have chosen to live into that rather than the fear that I'll look old when I get old because I have wrinkles.  I think the lines on my face show the expressions I've had on my face the most - those expressions have carved my skin into the shape it has now.  Had I spent much of my time scowling or frowning or disapproving, my face would look quite different.

I'm thinking about painting a series of self portraits from these photos.  To me, that's what Rob meant - I have to be willing to expose myself completely, to dig deep, deep, deep into my own psyche and offer myself up as someone who has done so in order to enable others to choose to examine their own stuff.  The publisher said the same thing yesterday - that the more truthful I can be in my writing, the more it will resonate with others, and the more they'll be willing to take their own journeys. 

I've done much of the psychological work already - it's recorded in my 4 packing boxes full of journals - but now I have to look back and get some objectivity and write it in a way that others can and want to read.  It's a very personal journey.  A powerful and precious one too.

Lasting Impressions V

A friend just wrote to share some of her experiences with people speaking about her body.  She is one of the most beautiful women I know.  She glows with spiritual depth and wisdom from her core.  She has a voice more beautiful than any other I've ever heard.  Her eyes shine, and her compassion moves me to tears when I share difficult stories with her.  I hurt that she has experienced these remarks.

here are some of the things that have been said about my body: 

about my breasts:  "What is that one --the feeder tit?"  (this was said to me by a female massage therapist about the size difference between my two breasts)

"I've never seen a size differnce as bad as your's"  (this said by a nurse practitioner during my gyn appointment)

"Jesus, you're lopsided"  by a gay male friend in college

"Have you had a mastectomy?"  -- by a female friend

"Flat as a board and never been nailed"  "Do you want a medal or a chest to pin it on?"  by a boy in junior high

"You don't need a swimsuit -- just two bandaids and a cork'  -- by my father when I was twelve or thirteen

There have also been numerous remarks made about my crooked spine from health professionals "the worst curvature I've ever seen" said a chiropractor  (clearly he had not been to an old folk's home).

"I didn't realize your thighs were so chunky"  -- from my sister-in-law at the pool

On the other hand, no man I ever slept with ever made a derogatory remark about my body. My one of my high school boyfriends named my breasts "Jan and Nan"  (Don't ask me why...we didn't have sex, but he liked what we did have... my college boyfriend Stan described my body as "elfin, delicate, exquisite"    Tom has always said complimentary things about all of me.  He might nitpick about housework, but he doesn't criticize the way I look.  He gets big points for that.

Lasting Impressions IV

Since everyone else has shared, I guess it's only fair that I share things people said to me which left lasting impressions as well.

I was raised by a dad who was as loving as a man can be, but he definitely had a prejudice against fat (probably because he was inordinately skinny himself).  He told me frequently as a child to hold my stomach in or I would end up with an ugly belly.  In high school I got into the routine of doing 100, up to 200, sit ups a night to try to flatten my stomach.  I realize that my stomach will never, ever be flat, no matter what I do.  God did not make me that way, any more than he gave me black hair or purple skin.

My siblings were both very thin by nature and are younger than I am, so to goad me when we were kids, they'd sing to me: "Fatty, fatty, two by four, can't get through the bathroom door."  I had the perception that I was fat even though, from looking at pictures, I can see that I wasn't.  I was a normal sized child with a somewhat protruding belly.  I was flattened by their teasing though.  I wish I'd had the self-assurance to get right back in their faces and tell them to shut up - or whatever other childish epithet might have worked!  Instead, I carried the belief that I was overweight into my 20's or 30's.  The reality was that I was 5'6" and weighed 118 most of that time.
 

When I was pregnant, I was embarrassed to be seen by my dad because my stomach was so fat.  Somehow I didn't think that he'd know the difference between pregnant and fat.  The first artwork I did was of pregnant women.  I think it was an attempt for me to come to terms with my pregnant body and to claim its beauty and sensuality, to love that overly huge belly with its extraordinary life-giving capability.

Later dad told me that once women have babies, they get fat, so I'd better do whatever I could to not let that happen to me.  I did because his opinion mattered so much to me.  Six weeks after my oldest child was born, I started doing aerobics 3 times/week and continued until 3 days before my second child was born.  A bit immoderate, if I do say so myself.

In high school, one of my friends, a boy, told me, "Martin, [his nickname for me], you sure do have a cute butt!"  Ever since then, I've felt cute and sassy as I walk, knowing my butt is cute!

As a young woman of 23, I was entering into the world of mothering and childbirth as my older women friends became mothers.  The husband of one of them was flirting with me in a way that was uncomfortable to me - I didn't like the way he leered at me - but one thing this man said to me stuck with me in a good way - he told me my hips are perfect for birthing babies.  Before that I had felt a bit uncomfortable with the size of my hips which are womanly, so for him to say that put things into a completely different perspective.  It led me to feel positive and hopeful about giving birth, empowered that I would be great at it.  That expectation and affirmation proved true.  I'm grateful for his comment - that one, at least!

A friend of mine told me she hates big aureoles then pointed out that I have very big ones.  Until that moment I hadn't particularly known what aureoles were or that mine were larger than anyone else's.

Mostly I was raised to be pretty oblivious to things of the flesh - I didn't wear a lot of makeup or worry much about how I looked or obsess about pimples or flat feet or whatever - thunder thighs, a fat ass, tiny breasts, too-long fingers, crooked nose - thankfully I didn't get a lot of messages about things that were wrong - or right - about me.  I felt pretty most of the time and believed that my beauty came from within.  I felt beautiful when I smiled and still believe that's true.

It wasn't until a few years ago that I started thinking much about how I look because I started gaining weight.  I have put on 15 pounds in the last 10 years, and I don't feel good about it.  My doctor told me that "women of a certain age" start putting on weight and there's very little that can be done about it.  I'm not yet willing to accept that, nor the inevitable decline into pudginess and invisibility which seems to happen to many 50+ women.  I've spent a couple of several-month-long stints at the gym and am about to start another one.  I like building up my strength and feeling more muscles, but it doesn't help me lose weight.  My stomach now has a roll of fat above it below my breasts.  I am not impressed.  I don't like it.  I guess I'll see if I can whittle it down a bit again.  (Why?  Because I feel bad about getting "fat", no matter how aware I am, no matter how many affirmations I say, no matter what, I am judging myself for how I look, much to my chagrin!)

Of course all of the above are some of the myriad reasons that I'm passionate about women's body image.  I'm trying to heal the negative messages I've gotten, and I'd love to help people become more aware of what they're saying so other people don't get hurt by insensitive, unconscious statements much less by consciously cruel comments.  I think if I had been more secure about how I looked/look, I would have been impervious to what others said about me (though perhaps not my family's comments - who can be immune to those?)  If I had realized that I am not my appearance, none of it would have mattered anyway.  But those are difficult things to become aware of as a teenager.  Heck, they're hard to realize and KNOW as an adult.  I'm still working hard to stay ahead of my own self-judgments and to feel consistently good about myself.

It's a lifelong journey.  I guess I'll just keep on keeping on til I'm there...  Thanks for joining  me for at least this segment of it.

The different sizes and shapes of breasts

I had the enormous pleasure of photographing a new model today, someone I haven't known for long and don't know very well yet.  She was awesome and brought some great props - a fake fur zebra coat and an impressive turquoise necklace.  It was fun figuring out how to use those.  I think they made for some terrific shots.  Look for them in the coming months!

As I was photographing her, she asked me a question I hadn't considered before:  What have you learned from this process?

I was stymied.  When I photograph people, I consider myself to be a conduit, there for them, to be present and available to them so they can have the most wonderful experience possible.  I don't really bring myself into it.  So when she asked what I've learned, I had to process the information I've gathered completely differently.

I've learned so much more about how women's bodies look, particularly about the similarities and differences.  I realize that before I began taking these photographs, I was really quite unaware of the specifics of a woman's body. 

Of course I knew what a woman's body looks like - face, neck, breasts, belly, butt, legs, feet.  But as for the variation!  I've learned how obese women look, or very thin women, or big boned, or average build...  It's been fascinating to see how all the parts come together given those variations. 

Breasts can be tiny little protrusions, or "perky" (I hate that word for breasts!  It sounds like that's the only acceptable way for them to be.), or stand alone, or droop to the waist, or big and fleshy, or small, petite little mounds.  Areoles are small, large, pink, dark brown, different colored or the same.  Nipples range from tiny to thumb-size (not in length - in diameter!)  This photo-montage can give you a sense of the amazing differences.  When a man says he loves breasts, I wonder if he's thinking of a particular size or shape?  I wonder if there are "ideal" breasts?  Which of these would a fashion magazine editor consider "perfect"?  Which would a partner love?  Which would a baby be blessed to suckle from? 

Then there are the bellies!  What a range!  Some women have a flat expanse from breasts to groin with nothing interrupting the plane other than their belly buttons.  The heaviest woman I have photographed has an amazing landscape between her breasts and her groin.  She has lost and gained weight several times so has stretch marks and dimples, mounds and curves.  I painted a picture of her belly just so I could explore it in detail.  I loved capturing the folds and bumps and fleshiness of it all, so different from my own, such an exquisite landscape.

I find it awe-inspiring to discover many of the different possible sizes and shapes the female form can take on.  Each time I have the honor of photographing a new woman, I am captivated by her  precious form, the unique beauty of her shape, the gorgeousness she brings to the world.  I feel so blessed in this endeavor.