“To be really mediæval one should have no body. To be really modern one should have no soul. To be really Greek one should have no clothes.”

A few months back I was in a Women, Gender, and Sexuality course and for an assignment, each student had to create a life-size “map” of their body. Most students ended up taking the outline of their own body, and filled it will magazine cut-outs of celebrities or quotes which they believed informed how they, or how society viewed their respective body.

For example: One girl used a famous starlet’s hair-because they tried to emulate that same style and saw it as the pinnacle of coiffure.

Another example: Another student put quotes around her “body”, that dealt with the assumptions society presumed to place on her body before even knowing her.

When I first got the assignment I was really stuck.

Firstly-I’ve never put body parts on a pedestal. IE “I wish I had Beyonce’s ass!” Or “I would allow my first born child to be taken by Rumplestiltskin if it meant I could have Rihanna’s legs.” I’ve certainly envied others their bodies,and been dissatisfied with my own, but I’ve never had a “goal” body (if that makes sense).

So the collage idea was out.

Secondly- As noted in prior posts, I have some deep-seeded insecurities with my body. Namely, that in my ideal world I would be a floating bubble and not have a body (laughable but I’m very pro-formless bubble!). So I was wary to stand up in front of my peers and dissect my body for an extended period of time.

As an art history student I literally spend hours, a day, looking at pictures, paintings, statues, frescoes, stick-figures of naked women. All day, everyday, naked!

That being said while studying Yves Klein in a Contemporary Art class, for the first time I saw an artist laughing at this trope of naked women being reproduced by men. Then looked at by men etc.

Instead Klein had his female models throw their paint covered bodies onto canvas (in front of some very affronted, aged Parisians), questioning the idea of the artist, the idea of the nude, and all that high-minded cerebral fluff.

Later Ana Mendieta, a Cuban artist, put a feminist spin on this idea of the female nude in her series of works.

After some thought and the purchase of a $4.00 vat of washable blue paint, I decided to continue the tradition, in my dorm room, to present in front of my class (I don’t know what I was thinking).

The result is below.

To be honest I actually had a lot of fun doing it. Side note-paint is really cold and dries fast.

I was scared to look at the final product, because it was my body. The shapes were mine. The lines in the skin-mine. The indent of my nipples (try not laughing while holding that up for a class of 19 year olds)–mine.

I can’t decide if the “painting” freed me by showing the reality of my form, or freed me by presenting the human body as simply a conglomeration of skins and bone and fat. Either way it brought me a sense of peace with my body that I have never felt in front of a mall changing room.

So ladies (and gentlemen) dump some paint on your body and create some instant art that you can impress your friends, family, and acquaintances with.

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