Sculpture and Naked Ladies

I put myself through art school by modeling, and worked with collage drawing, painting, sculpture, anatomy and illustration teachers all over Southern California. I knew early on that a skinny, spotty guy had better be at least "interesting" and came up with poses that weren't the standard - boring- ones. Instead of doing one drawing, I could be 25 drawings.

Years later when a friend confided to me that her gang of "with it" tough painters referred to any art model as the pink antique. I wanted to slug her. It was funny but painful that something that I valued and worked hard for- both the modeling and the figure drawing - was dismissed as passe' by folks who saw no use in studying the figure.

I was reminded of that when I came home from vacation to find my "naked ladies" blooming. Amaryllis is a monotypic genus of plant also known as the Belladonna Lily or naked ladies. Naked because the leaves emerge in early winter and disappear mid summer. In early fall stalks emerge from the dry ground with blooms bubble gum pink. Amaryllis belladonna, is a native of South Africa, particularly the rocky southwest region near the Cape.

I planted them in front of the biggest boulder on the property for the contrast of pink and rock, bloom and dryness, smell and shadow.