Intimacy

Adam & Eve - Albrecht Durer

I've been thinking lately about what intimacy is and how I define it - and I've come down to the basic idea of intimacy = nakedness. My buddy Chris Hobart once did a one-man show called "Naked" where he did an emotional strip on stage, revealing all the hidden parts of himself, ending up "nude" on stage as he disrobed before the audience.

If the first three chapters of the Torah tell us anything, its about our response to being found out, revealing things about ourselves we want hidden from others or our God(s). When we're naked with someone, there's a level of intimacy and familiarity that goes hand in hand with trust... and that can also mean there are things that we don't want seen.

Reclining Nude - Lucien Freud

As a painter, I've spent hours of my life with nude models of all shapes and sizes and ages ("like meat to a butcher"), but with all of them there has to be a level of trust to enable the degree of intimacy where you scrutinize someone's nakedness for a prolonged period.

Painter Lucien Freud's nudes are often cited as being too revealing - exposing too much on canvas. Certainly the poses are provocative and genitals are evident/ emphasised. But Freud's work is also about nakedness on another level - intimacy and the trust between model and painter as we the viewers are shifted into that unique intimate space of trust. When you look at a Freud painting, often the models are sleeping - so complete is their trust and sense of security that they feel they can be totally relaxed under the painter's gaze.

I had a friend who modeled nude for the art college I attended in the 80s and we both knew it would happen one day where we would end up in an unusual situation seeing each other in a way we never expected to. When it happened, the awkwardness we expected wasn't there - we had a level of trust between each other that existed over a period of years and allowed us to continue on past what potentially could have been embarrassing.

Recently I wrote about haircuts and the intimacy of that experience and a friend said she knew what I was talking about. Perhaps we're all a little surprised when we expose ourself a little more to a stranger - hoping we won't be laughed at or criticised or judged and rejected. When we're naked with a lover or friends, we're most vulnerable and revealing all with great risks involved. We shouldn't be surprised at awkwardness or hesitancy. So if revelations here are too revealing and I show you too much, I make no apology.  I just want a little bit of intimacy... don't we all?

Burn brightly, Pete