Learning who you are.

I have had the honor and the pleasure of modeling with Michael Baxter, the genius of belly dance photography.

I never knew I had mystery inside.

Michael was gracious enough to experiment with me. The images he coaxed from me and his equipment showed me aspects of myself that I never knew existed.

If you asked me to describe myself, I would always say I was a little funny looking. I'm far from petite or graceful and - let's not mince words - overweight.

But Michael showed me a part of myself that was strong, passionate, and, yes, beautiful.  I learned a valuable lesson that day:

I no longer could justify my self-loathing.  

I wish everyone could have the experience of working with a gifted and empathic photographer. I wish you could discover the parts of yourself that you do not see.

Question of the Ages.

Today's topic:

Men's underwear.

The Seducer, by Gregg Homme

What is the sexiest to you?

Art, Emotion, And Muses

A repost from October 2009

Michael and I

I got to participate in one of the coolest things ever.

I got to experience a photo shoot with the hugely talented and visionary Michael Baxter. Internationally known as the premier belly-dance photographer in the world, he was willing to meet with me and work on some portrait and retro-style pinup photographs.

Michael is the sweetest person you'll ever meet. He's generous, kind, and the very definition of artist. In between shots, we talked about what makes a photo or a paragraph or music into art, something transcendental.

Not to get all Aristotelian on everyone's asses, but we kept coming back to the idea that art evokes emotion. For example, tragedy arouses fear and pity, then creates a catharsis for those emotions. All art forms revolve around emotion- the arousal, examination, and release thereof.

Aristotle, author of the Poetics.

The visual arts can suggest a story in a single image. The written arts can suggest actions and meanings that re-create or imitate the world.

Thank you, Michael, for being a Muse for me.

Blast from the past.

Here's a  post from December 2009. Yeah, I've been here a while now!

***

Gilgamesh and Enkidu

The most powerful myths are about extremity. They force us to go beyond our experience. There are moments when we all, in one way or another, have to go to place we have never seen, and do what we have never done before. (p. 3)

Bernini's Apollo and Daphne

[Myth] enables us to place our lives in a larger setting that reveals an underlying pattern and gives us a sense that against all the depressive and chaotic evidence to the contrary, life had meaning and value.

A Short History of Myth by Karen Armstrong.

Dream Big!

Self portrait of Peter Paul Rubens

Writers are told "not to quit their day jobs", that publishing is a difficult industry to break into, that you'll never be as big as you dream.

To these naysayers, I say,

MEET PETER PAUL RUBENS

Rubens, 1577-1640, was the foremost painter of his time and is considered one of the truly great artists of Western Civilization.

Rubber ducky added to show scale.

But most people know Rubens through pictures in a book - small pictures, if not down right tiny.
Look at these lovely thumbnails from the book The Louvre: All The Paintings.

Teeeeny-tiny little dreams. See that picture on the right with the three naked ladies just sort of hanging out? Yeah, looks like a masterpiece from a big shot artist, huh??

But! Rubens dreamed BIG. And I do mean BIG.

It's hard to take a steady picture in the presence of the magnificence of Rubens.

Here is (a crappy iPhone) photo of the painting in person, at the Louvre. With me, a 5'10" next to it to show scale.

This is not the dream of someone who is scared of losing their day job.

So dream like Rubens. Dream big. Dream of words thirteen feet tall and 10 feet wide.

Hitting it, Minnesota style.

A friend of mine (yes, a Minnesotan) asked for some sexy times in a ice fishing hut. And this is what I came up with.

Ice hard

Minnesota in winter was a hard place.

But not nearly hard enough, Mrs. Bjorn Johnson concluded. That damn Bjorn, fishing addict he was, had been up in that there damn ice fishing hut for the entire weekend, tending to the entirely wrong set of holes.

How was a woman supposed to get any lovin’ this way? She’d even wore her sexiest nightie -the long insulated green one without any feet – to bed last night, but her beloved Big B merely gave her a wet smacking kiss on the cheek and rolled over.

Discouraged, she’d put her footie pajamas back on and spent the night coming up with her cunning plan. If Mohammad couldn’t come to the mountain….

Already dressed in her warmest garments, Julika, sturdy, independent woman she was, strode across the three foot thick ice and throw the blowing snow to Bjorn’s sizable ice-fishing hut.

Not even knocking, she flung open the door. “Hello, darling,” she sing songed, walking into the heated room.

“Holeee cannooooli, Julika, what are you doing here?” Bjorn’s arousing Minnesotan drawl tingled her neglected places as he leapt to his feet, nearly upsetting the chair he’d been perched on watching the black waters under the ice. His shirt sleeves had been rolled up, revealing strong forearms, just like Paul Bunyan. Julika pressed her thighs together at the sight.

“Why, can’t a devoted wife see to her husband’s comfort?” she purred, peeling off her thermal mittens, her scarf, ear muffs, and stocking cap with the panache and confident cocked hip of a showgirl.

Bjorn gulped.

She unzipped her down coat, tooth by agonizing tooth, holding Bjorn’s gaze the entire time. He swallowed as she tossed it onto his small table, scattering fishing magazines and a lone copy of Maxim. She’d pin his ears back good about that later. Right now, this real life woman’s real life needs demanded attention. She was on a mission.

Her insulated vest went next. She peeled and tugged and unzipped and unbuttoned until she stood before him in her boots and clinging silk thermal long johns.

“Bjorn, I just had to know how your…pole…was doing.” Julika ran her hands up and down her torso and breasts just like she’d seen in the stripper aerobics tape Annika had snuck to her under the table at the last Church Ladies’ Social.

Her man’s blue eyes bugged out at her hard nipples and unbound hair. A gratifying lump appeared in his flannel lined jeans.

Leaning against the table, she spread her legs, letting him get a good look at her puffy hoo-ha pressed against her longies. Her fingers delved past the waist band of the drawers and stroked aching flesh.

“Now, you gonna provide for your woman, Bjorn Johnson, or am I going to have to become a DIY gal?”

****************************

What is your favorite "not the usual location" setting?