From: Jack Fulton (jefulton1@home.com)
Date: 09/14/00-12:22:29 AM Z
I've always enjoyed the nude body.
Men and women.
Boys and girls.
Babies.
Giraffes and gazelles.
Porpoi and the fresh caught salmon.
Okay Š I was born naked and my parents loved me Š and so too I grew up in
the sixties, naked, dancing and making love to the first naked woman I met
and to whom I am still married. We are still naked at times and we still
have attributes each of us admire both physically and mentally.
As a young man in grammar school I'd stop in on the highway at the local
store and quickly thumb through the nudist magazines w/all pubic hair
sprayed away. Later, interested in Art, I noticed a difference in different
printed editions of Breughel's work where in the conservative printings, cod
pieces were air brushed out.
Playboy then came out. Dixie Cothren (a man) who ran the local Boy Scout
camp subscribed. I was so intrigued by Marilyn Monroe that when she married
Joe Dimaggio I telephoned her (number in the phonebook under Dimaggio) and
spoke to her telling her I was her newspaper boy.
I took up photography as a hobby.
A number of my early photographs include mi esposa, mon femme, Diane, naked,
sort of Earth as Woman in those days, Mrs. Gaia Š and a few self portraits
are of me and are pix of nudity. Some, done teaching my classes are of
models used to pose for art classes. Those were the days eh? I am much
younger than that now. And, there were both men and women models.
But Š have any of you been to the Vigeland Garden in Oslo? Now that is an
appreciation for naked people. It's the most inspiring public sculpture I
can think of.
Below I clip some of the text about this wonderful man.
"Gustav Vigeland was born in 1869 in the south-coast town of Mandal in
Norway. Vigeland's artistic talents were first revealed in his drawings and
woodcarvings and at the age of fifteen, his father took him to Oslo to
apprentice him to a master. The death of his father only two years later
forced Vigeland to return to Mandal and relinquish all hopes of becoming a
sculptor. In 1888, Vigeland was again back in the capital, this time taking
with him a bundle of sketches for statues, groups and reliefs, their motifs
mostly deriving from Greek mythology and the Bible. The sculptor, Brynjulf
Bergslien, impressed by his drawings, took him into his studio and gave him
his first practical training.
The work of Auguste Rodin, seen by Vigeland on visits to the artist's studio
in Paris, made a perceptible impact. Rodin's intimate treatment of his
relationship between man and woman was also influential in Vigeland's
life-long development of this theme.
"I was a sculptor before I was born. I was driven and lashed onward by
powerful forces outside myself. There was no other path, and no matter how
hard I might have tried to find one, I would have been forced back again."
So, now, if we are speaking about Art, the nude woman or man is comething to
celebrate. And now and then I think of the Emperor's new clothes as I walk
to and fro thinking of Marilyn and Joe.
Now Š indeed there are elements of the gaze, ogling, leering Š and prurience
and thoughts lascivious Š and just plain badass people Š and stupid guys who
just dig chicks as a commodity, as a candy bar Š and that reckless and
feckless behavior is perhaps even rampant in the decade of ought-noughts.
Some say to hell mit Helmut while others think Jock Sturges is from South
Dakota. I neither support ignorance nor condone aggrandizement Š but blithe
bliss is joy to behold.
May the beams of light write on your naked minds.
Jack Fulton
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