Biografie:
" I am a painter of women, sexualized, surreal women.
People always ask me how I got into this business.
What they really want to know is why I am such an anomaly.
Which I'm not.
"this is not what nice girls do.."
Men admire imagery of women and women admire imagery of ..women.
From religious iconography to pop culture
stars, women fantasize and idealize through these images.
Over the years, many women have come up to me and told me about their drawings
of women and the mixed reactions they get.
I think it's strange that women aren't known for this genre, since it is ours to know.
I have always drawn women. I can remember when I was three or four,
drawing a Barbie-like character based on my mother, although Barbie Dolls didn't exist until I was 10 years old. Two decades later, trying to figure how to support a fledgling fine art career, I created a portfolio of black and white Aubrey Beardsley inspired women.
They emerged from this female character I'd drawn all my life, but now she was sexually amplified by the liberated 60's and inspired by choreographer Bob Fosse, master of jazz burlesque choreography.
Television commercials for his Broadway hit Pippin ran constantly,
a hypnotic loop of 2 women and song-and-dance man Ben Vereen
sporting Panama hats and canes. The movie Cabaret was in the theaters,
a masterpiece of dance and direction by Fosse. This was the most erotically
charged choreography I had ever seen. I was fascinated by the bizarre,
exaggerated moves, the bawdy comedy of it.
My characters were mentally animated by his dancers, as I drew women
in black and white, like the notes on sheet music.
I went to a newsstand and wrote down the addresses of adult magazines.
Many of these publications were in New York. I made appointments to see
the art directors. There was something compelling about entering into
this netherworld. There was a shortage of talented illustrators in these magazines
and I thought I might get a job and learn erotic illustration. I worked obsessively
for several years in my Greenwich Village apartment. I was learning subject and
style on the job, and was given considerable freedom by my art directors
my creativity blossomed. The work was fun and I was making a living.
In the back of my mind I believed I would go back to the fine arts.
It wasn't clear to me then, this work became my art.
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