I
love to travel more than anything. I have given up any semblance of domestic
life in order to give this more time. But to do this means getting creative for
how to make it affordable.
So I
discovered artist residencies. And I have begun to use body painting and
costume art as a way to travel and to share my art globally. Only I don’t want
to just create the art. I want it to make a statement and hopefully an impact.
So
when I started applying for residencies I decided to let the message of my art
be water conservation. I have been a water protector for most of my life and
after going to Standing Rock to support the movement of “Water for Life”, I
took this title for myself as well. I even built an earth ship with sustainable
living and water conservation in mind.
It’s
not easy to find any artist residency that will accept a body artist since my
art is only temporary and not something that can be on display in a gallery for
more than one evening. Besides that, body painting is still considered pretty
risqué in many countries. The best body painting can only be done directly on
the skin without fabric interfering. So of course, since nudity is involved it
is a bit taboo.
Last
year I was accepted into a France artist Residency at a lovely location in
Cassis. The house was beautiful, in an upper-class neighborhood, with a castle
on a nearby hill overlooking it. It was just two blocks from the beach and the
quaint little town of Cassis which has numerous bakeries and traditional French
restaurants. There is an open-air market twice a week with vendors selling
gourmet cheeses, fresh organic vegetables, French antiques, and current fashions.
Sophie,
the hostess of the residency, while very busy with her own business was also
very attentive to the artists, making sure we were comfortable and always had
what we needed. She was generous enough to introduce me to the town's biggest
art patrons to discuss options for where to display my one night show. They
were very interested in my work and Sophie interpreted each of our questions
for each other in French. Unfortunately, it did not prove fruitful as it was
decided that this town was just too modest to really be open to what I had to
offer.
So I
began my own search through social media and finally came upon a small gallery
in Marseilles that was happy to host my show. I visited the gallery and felt
good about the partnership, excited to be showing in the alternative arts
section of town. I had two weeks left to create the costume and design the body
art dedicated to water conservation.
In the meantime, I did a lot of exploring France, collecting materials along the
way for my project. I had invited my dear friend and aunt by marriage to apply
to the residency at the same time as me and she was accepted too! So, Christy
and I rented a car and drove to all of her favorite small towns within a few
hours of the residency. We went to the one place that I definitely wanted to go
to -TWICE! In the Camargue, a large national park, I could see and photograph
the pink flamingos during their mating season.
Lucky
for me she knew the country pretty well and was especially familiar with the
food, having attended a cordon bleu cooking school herself. So I got to taste a
lot of wonderful French cuisine and learn about the many kinds of cheeses and
fine wines along the way. Being a lover of sweets, I was excited to learn that
each town even has its own signature dessert. And every town serves warm
chocolate cake- my favorite!
We saw a lot of really wonderful art. And the circus was literally in town! So we got to see a show at the International Circus Festival in Marseilles!
And of course, I found a parade!
I
was down to the wire when I finally found a model for the show, another artist
at the residency. We would be in Marseilles for one night to do the show and
then I would leave the next day to head back to the states.
The work in progress
My
costume and body art turned out beautifully. The message was that as humans we
have the choice to keep our water clean and pristine or to pollute it with our
waste. Her upper half was body painted in shades of blue designs representing
flowing water. She wore a large collar and a headdress in three shades of blue with
shapes like ocean waves and adorned in chandelier crystals representing drops
of water. Her bottom half was garbage bags wrapped around her waist and
extending onto the floor all around her to represent trash that is going into
the sea.
When
the doors of the gallery opened to the public that night I had high hopes, as
always, to create a presence that would not be easily forgotten in France. The
gallery owner was an elderly French man who had been very kind and was assisted
by a few young black African refugee men who did everything to help make things
just to my satisfaction for the show. A DJ was also there and photographs of
the most recent Marseilles protests, protecting special trees, were the
backdrop. Everyone with the gallery was very kind and the other art seemed like
a great combination for my piece. I felt I was in good hands there.
But
the evening did not quite go the way that I had hoped. Very few people came into the gallery and the
ones who did were only male African refugees looking to party. I believe that
because so many of them also sat right outside the door smoking marijuana and
looking a bit daunting, others were not too keen to enter. One of them even
came up to me at the start and blatantly suggested, “You will go home with me
tonight.”
As
the hours droned on, there were more nasty propositions and more men came into
the gallery. In fact, I noted that I had seen very few women out at night
anyway. The owner and his assistants seemed nervous around the other men and
even though they sensed our discomfort, they were obviously not willing to
speak up and ask them to leave. It was clear that they knew that would cause
more trouble than they wanted.
The
scene became more of a party and finally, when one man ran up and tried to put
his mouth on my models’ breast, I had had enough. The people who ran the
gallery did little other than gently reprimand the man while I ran out and
started screaming for him to get the fuck away from her. At this point, I
decided it was time to go. She was dressed and we were packed up and left
within ten minutes. I thanked the owner and we left, careful to watch our backs
not to be followed to our Uber around the corner.
Never
in my twenty plus years as a body artist had I seen a public assault on a model
and I was severely upset and embarrassed for the art form I loved. I was just
glad we got out of there with no harm. And I was particularly grateful that my
aunt had gone home the day before and had not had to experience that trauma
with us.
It
was clearly a lesson to vet all event spaces during the day and the night in
future circumstances. Places can be 100% different in the dark than they are in
the light. And since it’s my responsibility to ensure the safety of my models,
it was a tough lesson to learn. We went home and talked about it for hours,
letting go of our trauma as best we could, both realizing we had been lucky
that nothing worse had happened.
My
time in France was really a treat until that incident. Sadly, it was the last
thing I experienced in that elegant country before leaving. But I will not let
it tarnish the memories of the rest of my time there. I experienced a beautiful
culture, had splendid food and saw marvelous art of all kinds. And I got some
of my favorite photographs of wildlife yet- of the pink flamingos!!
Se
la vie!
