Venus on the Turntable
She knows where desire ends and art begins
She climbs uneven hand-hewn ladder-stairs up into tree-tops, into tree-house turned art studio — dreamed into existence by eccentric artisan-sculptor, time-worn as the soul of stones he turns into art. Strutting red kerchief about neck, an exuberant wizened robin, regaling tales of glory days when he ran with Germaine Greer and the Heide boys — the cool art crowd.
Behind a screen, she peels herself free of external trappings, slips on kimono, bundles waves of hair loosely on head — more falling down than tyed up — that’s her style. Ascends to the podium, kimono falling like rippling water, skin bared to eager sunlight — sloping through the green of swaying leaves, through open windows.
All eyes upon her — her glance a study of nonchalance. She’s a professional Venus rising— captured on many a canvas, she’s adorned a plethora of podiums — the artist’s guiding star. An expert calculator of cause and effect — the exact impact of angles and curves. She knows where desire ends and art begins — but there’s always exceptions to rules, isn’t there?
Eccentric sculptor, mad inventor has more surprises in store — as she finds the pose, subtle shifts in details of be-Mused allure, he flicks a switch — suddenly she’s perspective in slow motion. A spinning Aphrodite. Venus orbiting through a galaxy of gazing.
If she catches a glimpse of sky in eyes she likes, finesse of his charcoal arcing desire through lowered lashes — well, she just breathes it deep into her feminine mystique. In her Venusian role, she’s the enigmatic holder of erotic potentialities — she’s not one to kiss and tell.
She feels the play of green-gold light across her skin — Venus revolving through the afternoon.
He’s setting up easel and giant sketchbook, arranging charcoals — her laugh — raises head — catches Venus ascending. Through his blue-eyed lens, is she a Canova or a Rodin? Watches her find her footing, feet elegant as Dionysian nymphs. One heel lifted, bending knee — it’s the details of her assymetry that draw his attention. How lifted foot juts hip, curves spine, slopes shoulder.
A slope that suggests the eternal slip of silk away from skin, always just dis-robing, always about to reveal more. Narrative in gesture. Hips that hold archetypes of feminine conquerings through history — Judith and Salome. Boadicea among the burning.
Tracing charcoal arabesques of turning thighs — to be translated to voluptuous granite. Three-dimensionality occurs in spinning phases. Follow the thick hair tumble like rock-slides down precipice of shoulder blades, the cliff of her back. Find the lilt of that languorous arm, signalling desire, the story of her spine in erotic innuendoes. Capture the poise of foot — a descent into endless bathings, or a climb out of the archetypal cockle-shell. Etch the softness of that smile into memory.
He has six weeks to fall in love — or lust. It’s all down to the fall of light across her breasts.
Venus playing on the turntable — all the long afternoon.
© Melissa Coffey 2021
I’m doing a double prompt response here to the prolific J.D. Harms - Get Romantic & Carving out a Statue. It’s probably a futile attempt at catching up. I worked as an artist’s model for many years — and sometimes posed for sculptors — so my mind flew to the process of creating a work of art, rather than contemplating a finished product.
I posed for a well-known sculptor, Matcham Skipper, (1921–2011) known for being a second-generation artist-in-residence at the site of Montsalvat, a famous artist’s commune from the 1930’s now on Melbourne’s outskirts, featuring medieval-inspired architecture and wandering peacocks.
Eccentric to the day of his passing, one of Matcham’s studios was a tree-house, built with his own hands, featuring his invention — a motorized revolving podium. I was lucky enough to work there — and to catch another artist’s eye. So there’s just a suggestion of that story here…
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