What is Nude Swim?

Nude Swim is a celebration of freedom and fun that integrates papier-mâché sculpture and gardening in an intimate setting. Several papier-mâché nudes swim through a dry underwater garden composed of succulents and other drought-tolerant plants that mimic a tropical coral reef. The full-figured female nudes are unabashedly naked, freed from the fetters of society and good taste - like fertility goddesses on furlough.

With the burdens of seduction and reproduction lifted, the figures enjoy release, flexing their heavy arms and legs in a weightless world. Sexy and humorous, these nudes both draw from and challenge historical images of female beauty and fecundity, from the faceless idols of antiquity who hold their oversized breasts in impossibly skinny arms, to the coy Renaissance Venus who discreetly covers a nipple with one hand and her hairless pubis with the other, to the modern American ideal of a neutered Barbie doll.

Years ago, a friend of mine went to "Nude Swim" at the YWCA on Wednesday nights. Since only adult women were allowed in the pool at that time, they were free to swim laps nude. It was wonderfully liberating on the one hand, being able to skinny dip without inhibition or male scrutiny, but a little odd to "see these large boobs coming at your goggles," she recalled. The title of the show is a nod to this long-lost experience.

Starting with the garden

I've gardened obsessively for 17 years. When I can't garden for real, which was half the year when I lived in New England, I garden in my mind, re-landscaping other people's yards, office parks, and empty lots as well as my own plot. Gardening soothes my soul and provides the antidote to the work-a-day world and civilization at large. A recent move from Massachusetts to Southern California opened up a totally new world of possibilities and plants. Since I was co-opting our landlord's yard, I wanted to create a beautiful garden for a small space that was easy to maintain and drought-tolerant. I was struck by the way many cacti and succulents in a friend's garden mirror the forms of undersea plants and creatures. Thus, a curving sunny border becomes a stylized coral reef, and what started as a few cuttings in pots evolves into an entire landscape. After creating my private underwater Eden, I set about populating it.

Why papier-mâché?

An artist friend was inspired by a show of works by the Linares family, who elevated the craft of papier-mâché to an art form in Mexico. When she suggested that we try it on one of our art dates, I said "Why not?" The basic materials are inexpensive or already at hand, many of them recycled. Sculpting, which, in my experience, had been limited to a class here or there when time and money permitted, turned out to be not only accessible but addictive. My driveway became my studio, the LA Times my clay, and the Southern California sun my kiln.

The papier-mâché process

Unlike piñatas, which are hollow inside, the nudes are solid with a sort of skeleton for rigidity and muscles to create bulk. I do not use molds: each sculpture is unique. If you were to X-ray one of the figures you might see disposable chopsticks, plastic cutlery, wire, plastic water bottles, plant stakes, wooden dowels, paper plates, cardboard, popsicle sticks, crumpled newspaper, and lots and lots of masking tape. These are the raw materials for the underlying form. The smaller figures are one piece. For some of the larger figures I constructed the parts separately - head, torso, arms, and legs - and assembled them later in the process.

After the basic form is created, the papier-mâché process begins. This is the part you might remember from childhood. The paste has three ingredients: water, flour, and a dash of salt. You boil the water and flour mixture and then add a little salt to prevent mold. That's it. It's amazing that these simple ingredients create such a strong glue. When the paste has cooled, you dip strips of newspaper in the paste and cover the form, overlapping the strips. The form must dry completely before adding a second layer. Whereas piñatas are meant to be broken and therefore have only a couple of layers of papier-mâché, the nude figures have up to 20 layers, making them quite heavy and very durable. If you look at a cross-section of one of the limbs it looks like tree-rings - completing the cycle from tree-to newspaper-to wood again. Each figure contains several Sunday LA Times and a few LA Weeklies to boot, and some of the figures took months to construct.

A layer of gesso and several layers of acrylic or oil paints form the skin, facial features, and other details. Finally, I coat the figures in a resin fixative to protect the finish. While the sculptures are very strong, they are not weatherproof: you cannot leave them outside. However, if you keep them in a dry place away from open flames, they should last indefinitely.