Fafner

When I was an undergraduate at Colorado Womens College I worked as a nude model at my school and for adult ed programs around east Denver. Once I went to pose for an adult ed class and, for some reason (which I have since thought about and decided to ignore all ugly possibilities) the teacher wanted to take slides to use in other classes. I gave him permission.

The year before my friend Susie had gone shopping with me and together we bought a formal for the Christmas dance, the Hanging of the Greens. She saw me in a way I had never seen myself (and never saw myself) and she picked out a purple jersey dress with a low cut neckline. It was gorgeous and gorgeous on me. We also picked out a purple pendant of a dragon in relief, with gold chains for me to wear with the dress. It was an medieval looking outfit (not surprising since Camelot style clothing was still a fad at the time) and I liked it very much.

For some reason, the evening I was photographed by that art teacher, I was wearing the pendant.

In this series of self-portraits (self being not so much  myself as an image, but portraits of strange or defining moments) I've decided I want to include that moment. It was strange to be photographed this way. I remember feeling a sense of defiance, rebelliousness, against my mother's insane, aggressive, accusatory prudishness and her certainty that I was sexually active -- long before I actually was. There was a tug-of-war, a tension, I believe within her, but certainly between she and my father. My father believed people were sexual beings, that sex was natural between men and women and should be fun. My mother -- I do not know what she thought beyond her notion (accurate, I believe) that sex for women is not the same as sex for men. Other than that, I only know what she did.

This is a drawing of a painting to be.