free form studios artist statement

I've been creating art all of my life...as long as I can remember, beginning with my first serious drawings (with isometric perspective) when I was four years old. I'm new to artistic and erotic nude photography. A purchase of a Canon SLR digital in 2004 unleashed the pent-up energy, and the result has been fulfilling... and met with good reviews from models, friends, spouse, and clients. But there has been a motivation on my part to make a statement about the kind of photos I create, mostly because of social attitudes, statements by friends and acquaintances that include the p-word, and also because of legal issues about how to characterize this collection. So, I'm in this mode of making a statement about the images on this website:

There is nothing shameful or pornographic about a woman's body. Nothing at all.
In some cultures and sub-cultures, that belief may be held, but why subscribe to it? I'm sometimes puzzled by the embarrassed response to my photos by a few friends and acquaintances who think of themselves as social progressives, and muse that some time spent behind my lens might open their minds to another view.

"The Nymphaeum" -William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905)
(click for hi-res image)

   I photograph women who enjoy their beauty and their sexuality, who enjoy sharing that positive experience with others. I think of my work not within the context of "porn", a word that is too commonly attached to images of nudity, but within the artistic traditions of many cultures that go back for millennia.
    Is there a sexual aspect to it? Sometimes no, sometimes yes. But again, I would say there is nothing pornographic about sexuality within the context of simple adult female nudity, which is all that is on display on this website.
    Every time the cap comes off the lens and I look at a beautiful woman through it, it's about beauty...light, shadow, color, form, aliveness, allure, personality. In some shots I look for the Mona Lisa, in others for the hottie, and everything in between.

Concerning Genitalia

"David" - Michealangelo

The prevalent examples of genitalia in classical art are those of males, of which there are many. Such artworks are on display publicly all over the world, the most famous perhaps being Michaelangelo's "David", who is letting it all hang out. This artwork is universally accepted and admired in mainstream Western Culture, and it doesn't have the porn label. And of course there is the famous bronze statue of the naked little boy pissing in Brussels, the number one tourist attraction in Belgium.
How is the photo below, which shows female genitalia, any different?

"Rosalisa's Contemplation" - JP
(click on photo for larger image)

Beauty, like porn, is in the eye of the beholder, which says more about us than than the images we see. This image is in a gallery on a very respected and popular European website where genitalia are not often shown this much, but for the webmaster it's all about the context...not sexual, just simple nudity.
The famous painting below, "Origine du Monde" ("Origin of the World", 1866) by master painter Gustav Courbet hangs respectably in the Musee d'Orsay in Paris.

Here is my tribute to Courbet's painting.

Much more beautifully sacred than profane.

Speaking of the sacred...

The paintings on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican in Rome are widely admired as masterpieces, yet there are many male nudes in explicit poses which include "Adam's" pee-pee. As I understand it, Michealangelo was gay and used male models to paint female figures...that's why I find his female nudes grotesque. There has to be an interesting story there, but we will never know the details. He should have perhaps posed one of the nuns. In the Sistine Chapel and throughout classical art of western culture, images of the female vaginal vulva are not to be seen.
Why is it an artistic taboo to show the vaginal "temple arches"? The vulva are a mysteriously beautiful part of a woman's body, the Taj Mahal, so why hide them? The answer is simple: Hiding the vulva is rooted in archaic attitudes about women being "unclean" there...being banned from the temple and exiled from their homes when they were menstruating. The fact that Playboy Magazine, despite its liberation of nude female beauty from hiding, still attaches some bashfulness--and by implication shame--about clearly showing the vulva is an indication that the total revealing of female beauty and sexuality is still banished to the fringes of our mainstream culture.

Sistine Chapel Ceiling - Michaelangelo

Finally about genitalia, Leonardo did an anatomical drawing of reproductive sexual intercourse. It is part of the royal art collection on display at Windsor Palace in Windsor, UK, no doubt for the amusement of the Queen and guests.

"Coition of Hemisected Man and Woman" - Leonardo

About Posing Nude

"La Maja Desnuda" - Goya

    One of my favorite nude models in art history is Pilar Teresa Cayetana, the Duchess of Alba, Spain, who posed very nude for her favorite painter and lover, Francisco Jose de Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828), usually referred to as Goya. The Duchess was "a highly unconventional aristocrat who had posed for more than 20 pictures for her artist-lover. According to legend, she was intrigued by the Maja image--a gay lady or harlot, or both--and begged Goya to paint her in this manner. The fact that the paintings were a part of the duchess' collection at the time of her death makes this theory quite plausible."* The painting scandalized Spain and came to the attention of the Inquisition, but Goya and the artwork were spared. The Duchess was quite the beauty, don't you think?
    As an Ivy League college undergraduate majoring in a combination of Fine Art and Art History, I had many an occasion to participate in life drawing classes and got accustomed to seeing completely nude women and men in a variety of poses at the tender age of 18. After a couple of sessions, I didn't think much of it...all part of my education. When my girlfriend came to live with me there, one of the first things she did was to pose for art classes, and for my art teacher and a classmate for a photography session. I enjoyed the attention she got, and I was the dude on campus with the beautiful free-spirited babe. It never occurred to me to think anything less of her because she did that. One of my pet names for her was "Duchess" because of her aristocratic bearing.
    She still treasures the images of herself from those times, and thanks me for being a big boy and letting her be herself even though we have been amicably divorced for many years. She was my first nude model, and we both still enjoy the photos, some of which remain in the archive.
    I understand that models sometimes come to sessions with much different feelings and thoughts about posing nude than the ones I have. I never try to persuade them to work outside of their comfort zone or their limits, and usually try to get an idea of that before we start shooting. As one of my models said to me, "The relationship between the photographer and the model is intimate." Nothing is truer than that. The intimacy is to be treasured and respected.
    Here are some artworks that are relevant to the statement. The Italian Renaissance painter Titian was the originator of the modern erotic nude, so that's where we start, and progress into neo-classicist works by Cabanel and Godward.
At the end is an erotic woodcut by Hokusai, and a work by German symbolist Franz von Stück**, sent by a favorite model and scholar.

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