Hold That Pose
There is something very freeing about being anonymous because nothing is expected of you; nothing is getting back to anyone, and no one cares. —Dolly Wells
[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]I’ve never actually done an official survey, but I’m relatively sure that the majority of nudes in my archives were done anonymously. It’s a thing. People want to participate in art, or want to remember their bodies before children, or how they looked when they were young adults, but they are very much afraid of the backlash of criticism that comes with taking nude pictures, especially if they’re going to be posted on the Internet. Comments, not just from Internet trolls but from family and alleged friends can be hurtful, cruel, and disheartening.
Artistically, there is also the reasonable argument that nudes done anonymously are open to greater personal interpretation. Without the identity that comes with a face, one is free to extend their imagination beyond a single personality, possibly even imagining themselves in place of the model. Where there’s a face there is someone else’s identity, a personhood inherently attached to the body. For a great number of people, that identity prevents them from being able to fairly and artistically respond to the rest of the body. All they see is “that person” nude. When “that person” happens to be a celebrity or someone of note, the work becomes all about the person and any artistic valuation flies out the window.
Shooting nudes anonymously has its purpose. When nudes are anonymous, one doesn’t have to worry that one’s children might accidentally find them in Internet search results one day. Anonymous nudes don’t require any effort toward hairstyles or makeup; one can literally crawl out of bed and straight in front of the camera. Working anonymously gives one more freedom to be expressive with their bodies than they might otherwise. Without identity issues, one can usurp the norms of a given society and use their body to make any number of statements they might not otherwise make.[/one_half]
[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]At the same time, however, working anonymously in art has many of the same drawbacks as other forms of anonymity. At the top of that list is taking responsibility for the statements that one makes. Being nude in front of a camera or for a painter makes a statement which one should, in ideal circumstances, own. Anonymously, one might poke at society, or a segment of people within a given group, without having to deal with any actual harm that may result from making the statement. We enjoy the freedom of being expressive, but fail to realize that, at times, being anonymous in exercising that freedom holds the potential for being abusive.
There is also the argument that working anonymously does nothing to help change public attitudes about nude art and being nude. If anything, anonymous works might reinforce the argument that being nude is somehow wrong. After all, if there’s nothing wrong with it, why wouldn’t one want to own the work? If we want to make nude work more accessible and publicly palatable, hiding the identity of those who participate does not necessarily help to achieve those goals. Progress comes in standing up, proudly, for the work that we do and not allowing anyone to shame us for it.
Still, reality forces us often into a position where anonymity is required. You’ll notice that we no longer list the names of models who pose for nudes. We made that decision because of the frequent stalking and other safety issues that come with a society whose attitude toward nudity remain warped and at time dangerous. For all the progress we’ve made the past thirty years in terms of accepting ourselves and our bodies as they are, our society still is too often incapable of handling nude photographs responsibly. Until those matters improve, some pictures will remain anonymously nude.[/one_half_last]
Dust On The Trail
Dust On The Trail. Model: Lisa Petrini
A photographer is like a cod, which produces a million eggs in order that one may reach maturity. ― George Bernard Shaw
[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Death can be a difficult issue to discuss with children, especially when it comes to family members. One moment, you think they have a grasp of it, then later, seemingly out of the blue, the topic comes up again with new questions that need to be answered. With a five- and a six-year-old around the house, the subject comes up surprisingly often, sometimes in ways we weren’t expecting. Trying to figure out how best to respond to those questions and situations is a mixture of wiping tears and trying to not laugh at the wrong time.
We were driving past a mortuary and its large cemetery one afternoon when Baby Girl pipes up and informs us that this was where her pre-K teacher, Miss ‘Nay, works. When questioned as to why her teacher would work at a cemetery, the little darling responded without hesitation, “That’s where she puts the people she doesn’t like.”
Miss “Nay was horrified to hear of the exchange. She’s a jolly, pleasant woman who does a great job with children, but might be a bit superstitious. “I can’t stand dead people,” she told us. “I don’t even go to funerals.”
More frequently, and certainly with less humor, it is Little Man who raises the subject, frequently in tears over the loss of his great-grandmother a couple of years ago. Trying to explain to him that people don’t live forever and that his great-grandmother had lived a long life does little to appease him. She’s not here now, and that’s what counts. At other times, though, he can look out across a cemetery and explain that once one has expired that, rather than becoming dust, our bodies become tree seeds that grow new forests. While perhaps missing a biological step or four, that perspective of a renewable life is certainly less traumatic and easier to discuss.[/one_half]
[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Growing up in rural Oklahoma, and especially the son of a minister, death was such a normal part of life for us that we were almost callous about it. After all, we played and ran in large fields where it wasn’t unusual to come across whole sun-bleached skeletons of cows. The general opinion of ranchers at the time was to only remove a cow carcass if it was diseased and posed a health risk to the herd. Coming across skulls in the dust just wasn’t that uncommon.
Western philosophies have evolved over the past couple of generations where we no longer see death’s natural role in the life cycle. Instead, we see that passing from life to dust as the ultimate unfairness, the unjust removal of someone important to our lives. We expect explanations where there are none to be had and look to blame people who are not genuinely at fault. In matters of violence that should never have happened, our sense of outrage stems from our own sense of privilege that the deceased should never have been taken from us; a warped sense that it is we, more than the dead person, who have been short-changed.
Today is the thirteenth anniversary of my mother’s sudden and very unexpected death, a mere six months and four days after my father’s passing. I was living in Atlanta and one of the challenging decisions we had to make was whether the boys should go to their Mema’s funeral. To do so would mean them missing the first two days of school, but to not take them would deny them the emotional closure we thought they might need. We left the decision up to them. They opted to not go. As one of them put it, “We’ve been to enough funerals this year.”
Life is a wonderful thing, but sooner or later we all become dust on the trail. Love now. Live now. Find peace. Embrace the full cycle of life, even when it seems unfair.[/one_half_last]
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