Where does the time go? Can it really be two-and-a-half months since my last post? Well, I've received enough complaining that maybe I should do something about it.
As recently reported on the pollybloggy, PK and I participated in a Spencer Tunick installation in Cork last month at Blarney Castle. Before I explain any further, I should probably put all the families on notice that what follows is a PG-13 story at best, probably R in Eastern Washington, most of the expanse between St Louis and Sacramento, and anywhere else that voted for W in the last election. Over here in Europe, it'd be G; but there you have it.
PK and I, along with about 1,200 strangers, got buck-naked in public and had our picture taken.
Sorry, we got nude. This was art after all. Tunick is an American artist famous for what he calls "site specific" nudes: photos of dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of nude models in interesting locations. He's done this all over the world, from Newcastle to New Mexico and Barcelona to Brazil. I believe the largest yet was in Mexico City with 18,000 volunteers. I've wanted to be a part of one of these events for years, and lept at the chance when I heard about it.
He came for two installations in Ireland, ours in Cork, and one the following weekend at the Docklands in Dublin. We had to gather at Blarney Castle at 2.00am on a misty Tuesday morning, and await instructions. We arrived right on time and found ourselves to be early for most. Very Irish. Maybe it's a Catholic thing: manana culture is very strong here. At the gate to the grounds were a bunch of lads dressed up as priests from a popular TV comedy (Father Ted), admonishing all us sinners for this wicked behaviour; we later saw them in their altogether. All in good fun.
We handed in our legal release and went in. The crowd that followed us really was a great cross-section of the community. While there were lots of the expected college students, art students, struggling artists and the like, there were also groups of housewives, professional looking folk, aunties and nieces, and the rest of us normal workaday slobs. That's not to say that, as we discovered later, tattoos, piercings of all kinds, and other body modifications were not the norm: they most definitely were. But more about that later.
As we sat in a field beneath the castle and large flood lights waiting for the dawn, misty showers would pass by every now and again, with people scurrying under the cover of trees for protection. Everyone was dressed, mind you, and having rather a good time. Some more than others. There was music and lots of laughing, and more than once smoke wafted over us that did not have, shall we say, legal sanction.
As the sky inched bluer and our excitement (anxiety?) rose, Tunick's assistant got on a loud speaker and gave us the low down on how everything was going to work. There would be four set ups: two for everyone, one for ladies and one for men. Spencer then spoke to us a couple of times before deciding the light was right and giving the green light. Amidst hooting and hollering, 1,200 people stripped off and walked about 50 yards to an adjoining field.
A note about the weather. It was mid-June, you'd say. Surely it was lovely, you'd say. I'd say, we'd already been sprinkled on at this point. I'd say it was about 57 degrees F. I'd say it was effing wet and cold to drop trou! It was funny to see the other skinny guys (and gals) like me shaking in the chill. Trying to hold still for the photos in these conditions promoted a certain comical wobbliness in skinny rear-ends that will likely remain forever etched on mind's eye.
But aside from the bracing, mist-inflected breeze, the very next thing to strike one was the almost immediate normalcy of it all: being naked with that many people, with that many different shapes and sizes and colours, made the nudity irrelevant. As if to say, so what you're nude! So am I! So is she! So is he! And them! And those guys! The article that PK cited summed it up nicely. "Here I was worrying about my white bits, my wobbly bits and my private bits, but to be honest there were too many "bits" on view for anyone to take notice of my nakedness after the first moment." To be fair, I wasn't worried about any of my bits being on display; but the sentiment is profoundly true. The nudity was not a big deal a'tall. Aside from the cold, that is.
The first set-up was a standing shot in a field lined with conifers, and some as islands in the middle. We were arranged by loudspeaker: Spencer on a cherry picker with a bullhorn barking instructions to his assistants to move this or that person, this way or that. What seemed to be an eternity passed before the artist was happy with the pose. Then it started to rain again. It was mercifully brief, and didn't happen again for the rest of the shoot. We started facing the camera; then turned around. The final shot of the set-up inspired more than a little giggling: facing perpendicular to the camera's line of sight, he had us touch our toes. That's right ~ bend over, baby! We were thus briefly pushed out of context and reminded of our nakedness. Equilibrium was quickly restored, however, and the sniggering passed.
Hopefully that has whetted your appetite to hear more, and I promise it won't take 2 months.
Slainte.
