To paraphrase Lewis Carroll’s Father William, in my efforts to capture the nuances of the nude I’ve, figuratively speaking, persisted standing on my head long past my three score years and ten. In my youth I feared it might get me a bad name, but now that I know I've got one, I do it again and again.
|
The British Virgin Islands recently staged their Summer Sizzle fashion show. It's an impressive collection considering that the island's temperature is into the 90s and that the human body was not designed for clothes; it's difficult to find something to hook onto to stop everything fallen down. Apart from keeping warm in a cold climate and protecting against insect bights in the tropics, the principal reasons for wearing clothes are contrary to each other: modesty and sexual attraction. The nude figure is less sexually provocative than one that is scantily dressed. The eye takes in the beauty of the body as a whole rather than being drawn to the parts tantalisingly hidden in the name of decency. After a lifetime of creating of hundreds of
paintings and scores of sculptures in my series "Daughters of the
Caribbean Sun", I am of the opinion that only the nude is well
dressed. |
The above image is taken from one of my Bare Minimum dress designs. At the time I was uncertain that it gave the effect I was after but I now see that it does. The semi-shear nature of cotton voile reveals the silhouette of the wearer. Hence the image has to be light enough and free enough so as not to distract.
The Alwin Bully Foundation Inc. is inviting members of Dominica’s arts and cultural community to take part in a public panel discussion aimed at exploring ways to strengthen and grow the country’s creative sector.
As a painter and sculptor, I wish I could be there to put a word in edgeways. But alas, old age has me grounded at my studio.
I must therefore leave it to the media professional, dancer, choreographer and long-time dance advocate; the poet, calypsonian, songwriter, musician and radio announcer; the cultural industries consultant and former Film Commissioner for Dominica; the emerging actor and First Vice-President of the National Youth Council of Dominica and the architect and former assistant artistic director of the People’s Action Theatre, to put a word in for the visual arts.
My life has been the poem I would have writ. But I could not both live and utter it.
(Henry David Thoreau)
An overview of what I have lived is contained in my video A Different Way Of Living.
