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Falling in Love

As I walk up from the main road, my breath quickens and my eyes dance over each house, acknowledging splendour that puts a skip in my glide – I have moved to a beautiful place. The hill steepens and the buildings accelerate as they exhilarate; I feel like I am in love, but it’s not with a person, just with my flat.

We models are getting to know each other more and more; online communication has freed us from isolation. I find myself thinking about the types we fall into. There are others like me, used to getting by on charm, an alluring accent and sex appeal. Modelling was a natural career choice if this is how one is formed. Others may be quite an alternative, booked more for their unusual physicality, at least uncommon in modelling. Their confidence in being large or older gives them an edge on the rest of us, though there may always be some artists they never work with. There are the famous images we are familar with by Saville and Freud, but beyond that a new realm of fashion is yet to be reopened.

On Friday night at 5 Rhythms Full Moon Women’s Dance, I bonded uniquely with women I’d never met before. This was a truly magical experience, healing, loving, uplifting… I came away on such a natural high I’d forgotten how that feels.  If I am aiming for an experience to give to women through Spirited Bodies, than I would like it to be along side that one.  It is a different phenomenon, but the 2 could easily feed into one another in this world which is bringing more and more women forward to soar and fly as the powerful spirits we are.

warming up

I like to Feel the changes, so I cannot move fast. I cannot rush to the beat of the removal men; just casually pack, undo, peel blu tac. I am riding a wave of satisfaction, because this move has been waiting so long; so many unstable periods of properties viewed only to disappoint.
Everything had to line up and now I’m ready. Well almost. Quite a few cupboards still to expunge! Mementos to reconsider, the view to contemplate another time. I have loved this room and loved in it too. I have lived here in bliss and in confusion; and I have grown too, into a model for artists, as well as becoming more of an artist myself. It’s confidence first, just to say this is what I am going to do, no matter the odds, and I will not be doing anything else. who is to say if I am good? It matters to me just that I am growing.
I observe energies more closely now, when I work. I know which man in a large group is most intent on me physically; not because he wants ME, but because he thinks he is the cutest (and he might be), and because I am standing naked, and hormonally there is a quiet rage going on beneath my surface. When I feel like this, then that is the energy I pick up on most readily. I notice other men, maybe interested but not imagining they would ever try with me, so not really focusing that way. Of course they may not be looking, but quite a few are. It’s not arrogance, just nature. I may be 10 years their senior, but not so old, and they may discern (correctly) that I am experienced and not shy, and given the right circumstances, who knows what might be possible! But it’s not on my agenda now, just observation.

Clawing my way out of Hell

My lungs fill more deeply with some airborne knowledge of provision, that I am in a haven unaffected by cuts. When the ground opens in London sucking away the mulch, lucky people here will leave on a special ship.
In a lofty studio a keeper guides their brightness softly.

A young God recreates Dante’s ‘Inferno’, depicting me falling into fiery pits of hell. I hang off a ladder legs splayed, neck dangling simulating agony, it really hurts.

At the second circle for eternal lust, the strongest hurricane sweeps sinners endlessly; I reach out.

Swamp-bound I sulk  in anger; and at the 9th and ultimate Satanic hotbed I freeze in motion. Grateful to reach the end of this hellish phase, I rejoice, marveling at the imitation.

Only Fools Objectify The Subject

No one makes me feel more at ease than old school cockneys in Deptford’s studios. Maybe it’s because they’re all men that they go the extra mile to let me know I’m in charge, but to be honest it just seems to come naturally. I laugh my way through what turns out to be an uncomfortable pose, while they rib each other about the music.
None have trained except on the job – like drawing emblems or story boarding, apart from Dave who attended art school in the 50s, when life was still in vogue.
With them I drop my tones a few notches, sounding more south east works here. I admit that when I started, there were prejudices I harboured – about style; but my God these evaporate. I don’t care what their pictures look like (and some of it’s very good), I just enjoy their company. I guess film theme tunes and they mock my ignorance, though I do have one ear to the couch.
Krall croons seductively and Darren is transported; the rest of us stand by.

Northern Line

Mothers in Hampstead invite me to visit; they remember how it used to be.
We speak on the phone and her voice is relaxing; I wonder if we were at school together.
Children deposited in school.
A pink chaise langue, William Morris, but the ceiling’s so high the room hasn’t heated. Frosty chandeliers and a view of the garden; I keep my clothes on.
Total immersion into right brain connection on paper. Kraftwerk surrounds us, the zone is occupied.

pisces, pisces rising

I’m at The Friendly Inn giving my feet a rest after standing for sculpture. Young animators moulded me in maquettes on figure irons as I turned. To see them pinch my breasts and smooth my thighs into shape I averted my gaze embarrassed. It was the older sculptress who got my shoulders right and then I recognised me.
How my feet were strained – sometimes clamping into contorted distortion, I knocked them back into shape periodically.
One young man clearly saw something else in me; he shaped horns on my head and a long curly tail. I smiled knowingly and later he shyly removed the extras.
I’m dining alone conversing with myself as I warm up. Images of horses in motion abound in this restaurant, maybe that’s why I’m eating so fast. The last tiger year has been an upheaval, and the purring cat albeit metal feels welcome.
80s music pipes me into a dream fit to carry me home on two wheels through a very cold night. I use my robe as a scarf to keep warmth in and the smile on my face.

Keeping Schtum at Torrens Street; Model Life

It’s Wednesday evening and I’m busting some moves in the basement at Torrens Street’s Candid. I reminisce briefly of old times larging it on the dance floor next door; I wasn’t naked then, but getting there.
There’s a buzzy vibe tonight with total beginners and long time regulars packing it in, sketching on the floor, sitting on garden seats or braving it at the easel. I storm in exhausted and ready to take them on. It’s been a zigzag marathon today starting in Baker Street, afternoon Blackheath way, ending up in the Angel. But something feels rocking; at the girls school I was reminded of the first rule of life modeling: ‘When the going gets shit, strike it hotter baby!’ There’s no hiding your feelings – everything’s out for all to see so just grab their eyes with every curve you’ve got, lure their gaze with unfolding angles. You’ll reap the rewards; to see their complementary images I am reminded that it’s not so bad. And while I hold their attention, I feel their warmth. I imagine each of them wondering who I am, but really I know they’re just trying to measure me.
I’m intense, climactic; I may finally attempt a long lost goal of singledom with a capital S. Or is it C for celibacy? I have no idea how this is going to go… and a terrible track record when breaking up with boyfriends. 2 – 3 months is a record since age 16. At 33 it’s high time.
It’s just a trick of the mind surely, and then one can progress, but with so much more chi! So much more anticipation oozing, coaxing and channeling into friends, work, art.

Most Shocking: Busted in the Buff 2

This was on Channel 1, Sunday evening. A programme based on an obsession with nudity’s misdemeanours/abuses of nudity and the comedy of it.

A nude guy caused more than panic in a US supermarket by proceeding to lock himself in a cupboard and cover his body in shaving cream. The most chaotic part is an overreaction by police – how much harm could the lathery man actually cause? But this is indecent exposure.

A woman whose boyfriend had complained about her appearance evidently when they were out in Central New York, decided to take a stand, by spontaneously removing all her garments, and flaunting provocatively, boldly her ample form. Why do people get arrested for this? I want every woman to protest at being told how to look.

In Buenos Aires performance artists disrobed one by one whilst watching buskers at a crowded pitch. They behaved as if they were isolated individuals before being arrested.  They pronounced that they wanted to make a statement about the normality of being nude and how it ought not to be taboo.

Nudist daredevils in dangerous motorcycling stunts were shown crashing painfully, as well as an ice hockey player protesting against violence on the pitch by pulling down his pants.