Expose your breast

His name is Joseph Mallard William Turner. If you studied him in art class, you know this painter as J.M.W. Turner. His works hung at the Getty Museum. (Maybe still?)

In the movie 'Mr. Turner' there's a scene where actor, Timothy Spall, playing the artist, Turner, is in a whorehouse sketching a prostitute...

He's positioned the prostitute in her bed, lying on her back, still fully dressed, legs spread, one knee up, with the back of one hand elegantly resting on her forehead.

Spall's character tells the prostitute to "expose your breast" and then immediately starts to cry. The prostitute, confused because he's crying, hesitates to comply with Spall's instruction. Spall, then raises his voice, once more instructing the prostitute to, "expose your breast!" In between fits of heavy sobbing.

With the prostitute's breast now exposed, Spall's character continues sketching...

And crying.

It was documented, J.M.W. Turner, suffered horrible depression. Most artists do...

Because artists are crazy.

The cause of an artist's psychological unravelling, I think, determines what kind of nutjob mental patient that artist will eventually become. Brilliant nutjob mental patient. Perhaps. Nutjob mental patient, nonetheless...

I should probably make my in- patient reservation now. Sans brilliance.

In the beginning, when I first started drawing male nudes, I used medical books and journals for reference. My (then) apartment was utterly littered with medical books. You would think I was going to med school...

I also made the mistake of reading those medical books, got thoroughly freaked out, and stopped buying the medical books.

Humans are disgusting. We truly are the plagues of the earth.

So then...

I started buying mens fitness rags and Playgirl magazine, to practice drawing muscles, veins, fleshy tones... entirely for reference.

One drawing made it into one of those men's magazines.

I wanted, more than anything, to make (my own) 'David'.

I still do.

And...

From medical books, to men's magazines, to Playgirl magazine...

 (This) artist introduced me to (that) model, who introduced me to another model, who introduced me to a guy, who knew a guy...

And I started using live models.

One male model in particular, I forget now how we met, even his name escapes me...

At the time this model and I met he had just posed as the male half of a male/female "couple" for a sex enhancement line, campaign. His pictures were one lubes, oils, etc. with this blonde woman.

He's the model I used for a large scale drawing I called "preservation".

While drawing "preservation" using this unbelievably handsome man...

I felt horribly

Severely

Completely

ALONE.

It was depressing.

I didn't cry like Spall's movie character portrayal of Turner, drawing that prostitute...

Probably only because I'm sober when I draw.

But...

While drawing that model, it was the worst feeling of loneliness I had ever felt, and never felt anything like it since.

I used that particular male model twice for the drawing, but because I felt so awful during and after our sessions, I finished the drawing using photo reference and "sight" method.

The drawing later hung at the Antebellum Art Gallery, Hollywood, for six weeks.

I draw men because I love men. I started drawing because I was attracted to my art teacher.

But...

"No matter who he paints, the painter always paints himself."

Which brings me to this...

The fight over "nude" versus "naked".

One is considered art, the other perversion.

THEE most famous of art was contributed by historically rumored gay men, commissioned by THEE Catholic Church.

Excellent job (renaissance era) Vatican, for hiring homosexuals as your primary artists. And you couldn't give these guys a reprieve from hell?

"Who knew those artist were gay?"

Right.

Varied Popes, over the years, covered nude Frescos with modern paint, visually ruining archival, irreplaceable, brilliant artworks...

Only to have other Popes, down the road, carefully remove the modern paint cover-ups, once more exposing the brilliant (nude or naked) Frescos, in full.

The problem was, some Popes, didn't see nude men falling into fire and brimstone as a scene of descending into hell, but instead, just saw naked men falling on top of each other. Which I think, says more about the psychology of that particular Pope, than the artist.

Covering up nudity, uncovering nudity, covering up nudity, uncovering nudity, cover-up, uncovering, has been going on with the Catholic Church, for centuries.

Is it ok to be nude in art?

Not ok? Ok? Not ok?

Depends on the Pope.

The current Pope, seems like a pretty decent guy, as far as Popes, go. He basically announced: Look, you don't have to like homosexuals, and they're totally going to burn in hell, but until they do, they're still people who deserve love and compassion...

Which caused a huge stir in the Vatican, and from Catholics around the world, to which this Pope, replied, "You don't have to agree with me, but I'm still the Pope, so, you know, fuck off." Only he said that last part in his own Pope-y way.

Back to art...

Naked or nude?

What's the difference?

Artists will always use the term "nude".

And I can only explain the difference in this way...

When I visit art galleries, and I see an elegant painting of a woman, wearing no clothes, sitting in a chair with her back to me, that woman is nude.

When I visit art galleries and I see a painting of a woman wearing no clothes, legs spread akimbo with a 15 inch dildo stuffed in her vagina, that woman is naked.

Nude, not sexual.

Naked, sexual.

Irony...

It's MUCH easier hiring a prostitute to pose nude for you, than finding a regular someone who claims to love art, to pose nude for you.

Furthermore...

It is my personal experience, men are far more uneasy being nude for a drawing, than being a naked exhibitionist masturbating for a female audience.

He won't pose nude for art, but he'll take his clothes off in a New York second if you want to watch him masturbate.

Hence,

Thus,

Therefor,

Prostitutes make great models for artists.

Back to J.M.W. Turner...

I can only relate with Spall's Turner, sobbing while drawing this exposed prostitute, as being lorn for not finding what you truly want, yet the unstoppable desire for sex, even with an undesirable.

It's a horrible conflict.

You can't seem to help yourself even though you always feel like shit after fulfilling your sexual desire, even masturbating...

Or so I hear.

I could never do porn. Sex might be hot fun, then and there, but then I'd feel like crap for the rest of the day, and hope I never saw that person ever, ever again.

If I don't like you, I'm not having sex with you, and sometimes it takes years for me to like someone, and sometimes a split second for me to intentionally never see him again.

And all this drama, I.e. church, naked, nude, sobbing, gay, perversion, whatever, means absolutely nothing because...

"No matter who he paints, the painter always paints himself."