Femmine
by Laura Riccioli and Tamara Bartolini
Wendy Artin, Laura Sitting, watercolor, 2001
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The Italian phrase "dare alla luce"--"to give to the light"--is an oddly perfect way to describe what Wendy was doing when she was preparing to give birth to Lily and creating these paintings of us, her models.
To pose for Wendy is a strange and beautiful revelation of the form that light takes on a person, of the memories that are evoked by each position of the body. A position can express a state of mind, or the recollection of a faraway image, or a purely physical memory, which sometimes returns to you when you least expect it. I remember the sense of waiting, of suspension, of happiness, palpable in the studio during the days that Wendy was pregnant with Lily: Even common poses were different, as though the very concept of femininity had become more rich, more ample.
Each day there was the possibility that one moment or another we could be surprised by the arrival in the studio of little Lily. I remember Wendy with a luminous look, armed with brushes and paper, climbing the stairs happily but with difficulty, stretching out on the floor during the break to rest her back. There was heightened accuracy in her drawing, in the way she gathered the details and curves of bodies that seem to be waiting for something larger than themselves. On the street too Wendy's movements were slower and softer, tensed to contain, to preserve: creating a body, this time not with a paintbrush. I realized that women are lucky to be able to be creative in so many ways that do not exclude each other but, on the contrary, enhance each other and give one another life.
Modelling has enriched my work as an actress with new and strong images that come to me from the force that I have come to recognize in my body through looking at Wendy's drawings. They have made me feel more positive towards my body, because although the beauty of her paintings is the fruit of Wendy's art and of her way of perceiving reality, they show how many different facets that which is called beauty can have, and how much beauty is indeed made of light.
Laura Riccioli
Wendy Artin, Tamara Touching Toes, watercolor, 2001
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Posing for Wendy... The hours that I pose for Wendy are spent in an atmosphere that we often forget in our daily lives, running from one place to another trying to fulfill our dreams.
I never look at Wendy while I pose for her, but sense her concentrated gaze passing over the details of my body, listening to the words my body speaks. It is like a dialogue between two actors on stage, a dialogue made not of words but of eyes, of pauses, of silences. The lines of my body search for the light, for the feeling that will make them different and new to Wendy's eyes, hands and paper. The struggle to find each new pose can be complete only through the regard of the other, of Wendy, of her paintings, in which I find myself transformed but unique. I have the sensation that we are writing a poem together, and I learn to be patient, to listen to the time of the drawing, the time of the pose. It is a profound exchange, made very pleasant by the concentration, by the music, and also by the breaks between the poses during which, a bit stunned, as though coming out of a long dream, we remember who we are.
The period in which Wendy was pregnant was the most intense moment of my experience as a model. That period was marked by waiting: waiting for the life that was taking form inside her, waiting for the painting to emerge on the paper. When Lily was then born, seeing her I had an unforgettable feeling, I looked at her and thought of how she had been present in all those moments, and how perhaps somewhere inside she carried with her the memory.
Tamara Bartolini