Renek Gaszewski [Blog]

Renek Gaszewski:

A tiger, a black swan, a pregnant woman and a fiery red “kalesa” [horse-drawn carriage] in front of a rundown building, these were some of the subjects of photography students, who mounted their first exhibit last week in Makati City. Read the rest of this entry »

Renek Gaszewski:

So my modeling career is shaping up nicely. Yup. Some people out there are into hair and they’re calling my name.
When you read this article, I should have already been posing for a couple days. See, I’ve got these friends of mine that consider themselves “artists.” And as “artists” they occasionally need someone to “art.” Read the rest of this entry »

Muara Johnston describes figure drawing as Pilates for painters. Any painter, regardless of skill and experience level, can benefit from the presence of a live model from which to draw. Which is why the assistant director for the SLO Art Center selected two documentaries featuring nude models to screen in conjunction with the Art Center’s exhibit, Corpora in Extremis (Bodies to the Limits). The public is invited to view The Nude Model and Art is an Attitude: The Art of Drawing the Nude as part of the Art Center’s movie night June 15 at 7 p.m., a program that began last October with the purpose of enhancing the exhibits.
“The centerpiece of art has always been human beings,” said Bill Buchman, director and featured artist of Art is an Attitude. “And, particularly, the nude, throughout the entire history of art. I think that the human figure is the basis for our concept of beauty.”
Buchman, of Florida, created the 93-minute instructional video in the summer of 2007 (it is now available for sale on Amazon.com for $34.95). He hired a co-director, who assumed responsibility for the technical aspects of the shoot. They filmed for two days in Buchman’s studio. For the sake of simplicity, he worked primarily with a single female model, an actress and dancer he had used before and selected because he knew that she would be comfortable in front of the camera. All told, the project was finished within three months.
Using a style that he describes as expressive and gestural—the middle ground between representational and abstract—Buchman’s purpose for the film was “to take [his] teaching technique out of the studio and to the larger public and to take people inside a first-hand experience of what drawing the human figure was about.” He sketches quickly, sticking to the fundamentals, as an hourglass figure most closely resembling a fertility goddess emerges from his brush. Heads rarely follow, and faces almost never. Working to maintain a spontaneous flow—Buchman doesn’t like art to be overworked or laborious—he strives for a universality that might be undermined by the addition of a face, and the expression and personality that a face conveys.
“I love the human face,” he said. “I started out doing street portraits in Denver, Colorado. But with everything else, you have to specialize. Even Picasso said, ‘I’ve ruined a lot of drawings by putting the head on them.’ People think it’s about something called realism or reality whereas it’s really about making magic.”
In his film Buchman draws the human figure in a variety of styles, from cubist to abstract, using tools that include Conté crayon, gel pen, ink wash, Sumi brush, soft pastels, watercolor crayons, and reed pen. He works in conjunction with European companies that import water-based drawing tools and media. His models in the film are exclusively female, although he does work with male models when he can find them (a task he says is not altogether simple in Florida). For painters who are interested in figure drawing but embarrassed about the prospect of working with a nude model, Buchman, who has been drawing from live models since he was 16, recommends participating in a class with a group of artists to minimize both cost and awkwardness.
“Anyone who wants to draw the figure would quickly realize what a normal thing it is and how comfortable everyone is,” he insisted. “The whole experience is on another level than purely voyeuristic. There is something naturally clinical that arises in a setting like that.”
But Rob Thompson, one of four producers of The Nude Model, approaches the subject from a different perspective. His film crew recruited artists and models to participate in a staged figure drawing class in a rented theater space, filming in a single afternoon. They researched the history of nude modeling, discovering that many of the models who now grace the walls of the world’s most prestigious museums were considered morally inferior to prostitutes. In the film, models discuss the physical and emotional discomfort that attends their profession.
“Unless you do a life drawing class, people have no idea what it’s like for the models,” said Thompson. “Some people felt very awkward about telling people they were nude models. There’s still a lot of prudery.”
Their models were both male and female, and sometimes their stories about nude modeling differed accordingly. One woman talked about modeling through her seventh month of pregnancy; a male model recounts an unfortunate incident in which he became aroused while posing. But the discomfort was balanced against the benefits of collaboration and the inspiration of the human form.
“It’s a different energy from drawing a bowl of fruit,” said Thompson, who has participated in an art class with a nude model.

A silly slumber party photo prompted child pornography charges against two Pennsylvania teens who posed in their undies. A mildly risque image landed six Massachusetts middle schoolers in court, facing felony child pornography charges.
And 20 percent of the nation’s teens and tweens may face those charges next.
Teens have been posting scantily clad images of themselves online since the early days of MySpace. Now they’ve been joined by their middle school and even elementary school colleagues. And the proliferation of cell phone cameras in the past several years has given even the younger crowd the opportunity to snap those pictures anytime and anywhere, and send them not just to that special someone, but to, well, everyone.
A single image, sent as a silly joke or sexy come-on, becomes a major liability the moment a young couple breaks up “… or some eager-to-impress young stud or hottie shows the images to the rest of the team “… or someone leaves his cell phone unattended.
The technology, says Anastasia Goodstein, a San Francisco-based youth culture expert, allows private photographs to go viral as quickly as the latest hot YouTube video.
“It’s public, even if you think it’s private,” says the author of “Totally Wired: What Teens and Tweens are Really Doing Online.” “Once it’s out there it can spread very quickly, damage reputations and cause all kinds of problems, including legal issues — which is a whole new topic of ridiculousness.”
At least a fifth of the nation’s teens — and a third of young adults, ages 20-26 — have “sexted” or text-messaged racy images of themselves or others, via cell phone or online, according to a 2008 survey by the National Campaign to Prevent Teenage and Unplanned Pregnancy and CosmoGirl.com.
Psychologist Susan Lipkins, a national authority on teens and young adults, puts the numbers even higher — and younger. About 6 percent of the kids who “sext,” she says, started at age 9. By middle school, it’s rampant. Up to two-thirds of teens do it. And the reasons they do it will surprise most parents.
Sexting has taken the place of fluttered eyelashes and coy looks. About 66 percent of the girls who sent sexts did it to be flirtatious, according to the CosmoGirl study, and 52 percent as a sexy present for a guy, but some 40 percent of the girls said they sent them as a joke.
But, says Lipkins, what’s really happening is nothing less than a cultural, sexual revolution, with parents on one side of the divide and their technological teens on the other.
“They’ve been online their whole lives,” she says. “They look at everything differently — sex, relationships, privacy and personal ownership. It’s a total break from previous generations and sexting is a symptom and a symbol of that new way of thinking.”
Sexting, says Lipkins, is “a new mating call” in a casual hookup culture, and one that needs a better response. The legal issues are a major problem — why punish the victims of viral sexts, she asks, and why aren’t prosecutors using existing sexual harassment laws instead?
But even without the legal ramifications, the humiliation factor can be devastating. Jesse Logan, an Ohio 18-year-old, committed suicide last year after her ex-boyfriend forwarded her nude pictures to the entire school, and classmates responded with relentless harassment.
The teen discussion forums on the CosmoGirl Web site are rife with warnings from high schoolers who have seen reputations destroyed and friends humiliated.
One girl recounted the story of a friend who sent a seminude image to her boyfriend.
“Within hours, the entire student body plus a teacher got it,” Chicky0903 writes in her post. “This went around so fast that I got it four times in two hours. She got suspended from school — she wasn’t 18 so its ‘child porn.’”‰” The girl was kicked off the student council, Chicky0903 continues, and utterly humiliated.
“Respect your body,” she concludes. “Think twice.”
These are not isolated cases, says Miramonte High junior Carina Chiodo, and the fallout can be considerable.
“At my school, sexting will mainly just get you a really embarrassing reputation, but there are still plenty of girls who do it,” the Orinda teen says. “I’ve seen photos of a senior guy at my school posing naked that he sent to several girls. A girl at my school sent pictures to some guy, and they got forwarded to just about everyone on campus. (It’s) kind of the thing to do if you’re attention-hungry. I think it’s disgusting and anyone that does it might as well take the naked photos that they’re sending other people and post them on a freeway billboard, because it’s only a matter of time before every person at the school will see it.”
Pinole graduate Joseph Natividad was startled by the very question — enough so that he asked friends at UC San Diego their opinions as well. Their consensus: Eww. It’s certainly not something everyone does, he says, and in many circles it’s regarded as distinctly déclasse.
Goodstein agrees.
“Yes, some teens are doing this — some very famous teens — but not all teens,” she says. “It’s something parents should be aware of, another topic to talk about. Teens have always been sexually curious. They have a lot of hormones raging and they’re using the technology they use for everything else to express that very normal part of being a teen. But the other normal part of being a teen is not thinking through the consequences of what you do.”
Once upon a time, a kid could make mistakes, says Walnut Creek psychologist Richard Freed, who specializes in kids and media issues.
“With digital information, the mistakes are forever,” he says. “I don’t think you can give your kid a cell phone and not talk about the responsibilities that come along with that.”
Bottom line?
“Think,” says Goodstein, “before you text — or sext.”

Woah! Wait just a minute. This can’t possibly be Geek Beat, can it? Where are the nerds? The thick glasses and pocket protector-wearing, techie lingo speaking, socially inept dweebs who got shoved into lockers and pantsed in gym class? Well, dear readers, this nerdolicious babe is here to tell you what you’re missing in non-geek land. In this case, hot retro honeys who take their clothes off and do strange acts in the vein of the original “geek.”
As any self-respecting geek knows, the word “geek” was originally circus lingo for a performer with an unusual act. Though today’s circus has gone to the dogs (well, more like the kids…friggin’ creepy clowns), acts like the Pretty Things Peep Show have revived the earlier traditions of stage magic, “freak” acts like fire eating and walking on glass and, of course, Gypsy Rose Lee style burlesque. That’s exactly what we saw this past Friday at The Trunk Space, where the current three Pretty Things parked their asses — and their RV — for the evening.
Circus freaks and geeks (with photo slideshow!) after the jump…
Clearly it pays to make your living as a sideshow freak, as local performer Dr. Reverend Stephen Strange got to play around with three gorgeous half-naked ladies all night — at their request. No glass-walking or scorpion eating for him this time, but we did get to see his signature tennis racket act and the corny trick above, whereby he bound two unsuspecting guests (one of which was local pop culture princess Nicki Escudero) together and “took” their unmentionables.
The two burlesque beauties, Go-Go Amy and Bettie May, performed a couple of striptease acts climaxing in a pastie reveal (see our photo slideshow!), but Amy went one step further when the tattooed Insectavora put her in a pink magician’s box. As huge blades sliced into the box, Amy’s clothing came off. The >b>stockings. The bodysuit. The panties. Everything but a pair of star pasties and a glittering pastie thong. The whole audience was invited to come up on stage and see Amy’s Pretty Pink Box — for just a buck or two donation.
Burlesque shows tend to “stoke the fires” for couples, if you know what we mean — wink, wink. Some more than others. This dude bought a pair of pasties for his ladyfriend. Although, judging by the fact he posed for us playing with his nipples, we’re not totally sure who the pasties are for.
If you missed the Pretty Things this time around, you can get vintage-y hair tips, makeup and a pin-up photo session for about $200 at their pin-up class in Tempe on July 13 or check out their other tour dates. No rush, though. Bettie May says she and the girls hope to be on the road “for at least five more years.”
Want to see more hot circus geek action? Check out our photo slideshow of the Pretty Things Peep Show.