‘Precious’

’30 Days of Winter’, Day 4

‘Precious’

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A friend Suzanne and I were talking about life and art and other things, including nudity, and how despite the fact that it’s our natural state, you rarely see too many other people naked (unless you live at a nudist colony or near a nude beach or have a far more exciting life than most people).

Suzanne said, “It’s like we are all always constantly wearing this mask to hide ourselves”.

I said, “well we also need to keep warm.”

She said, “Yes but our nakedness is still there under our clothes and I like to think of that as a good thing, as a precious thing. When you think of it like that, you can realise how pleasurable it is to reveal that precious thing sometimes.”

That got me thinking. I said, “You mean like a precious piece of jewellery that is revealed on certain occasions?”

She said, “Yes, exactly.”

I then mentioned that I had an old box that a ring came in and was trying to think of a use of it for an art project. Her eyes lit up, and she proposed to pose nude for a photograph, which could thus be placed in this box as a precious item.

A lightbulb lit up and we decided we’d try it, with Suzanne modelling nude but with a mask held over part of her face, the opposite of what occurs when we walk down the street with our face exposed.

It’s unusual, it’s strange, it’s rather precious.