My friend, Ian Bateson a retired illustrator and designe, now an artist, has a special talent of annoying me with comments that he often repeats to me. One of them is, “You are reiterating yourself.”

And indeed when something is good I feel I should be able to write about it, speak about it, and, especially to photograph it again, and again. Indeed the present blog has a previous variation.

In these days of quarantine reflection (the first encourages in me the second) I go through my files to see what I can find that enable me to reiterate myself.

Today’s jackpot is my former friend and marvellous ecdysiast Annette. Had I known then her last name I might be able to find her now. I last and first photographed her, three times, in 1988. The first time I shot what in my innocence of youth did not understand to be simple boudoir. I do believe that the three here are a tad less cheesy than most do these days. A third time (before I write about the second time) involved a series of photographs that I took of women at home that had a pattern.

I would ring the bell and then allowed in. I would request a coffee or tea. In the kitchen or living room I would look around and then decide where I would take a series of photographs (but always in one location) with my subject not wearing anything. The show which I had in a local gallery was called Homebodies. In the case of Annette, she opened the door and told me to excuse the mess as she was painting the kitchen. I photographed her standing on a stool in the kitchen holding a paint roller in one hand and showing off one of the loveliest bodies I have ever seen. I cannot place that photograph here.

That second time involved shooting for an article that my now gone friend, Garry Marchant was writing for a magazine about BC jade and the fact that it was mined by a Canadian petroleum company. Because in 1988 we magazine photographers were given extraordinary liberties I decided to photograph Annette with a background of BC jade tiles. To contrast the greenness I used a red hairlight.

In those 80s whenever I had to shoot for brochures and magazines I was often asked where I obtained my unusually beautiful models. All I ever did was to answer with a smile.

El artista y su modelo (the artista and his model) has an interesting ring when it is la artista y su modelo (the woman artist and her model). 

El artista y su modelo 

Los artistas y la modelo 

Juan Manuel Sánchez y su modelo

For a few years when the 20^th century was becoming the 21^st I worked with a pair of married Argentine artists here in Vancouver. We worked in my studio, in their home and in a few odd places with models, mostly female but with some men too.

The two, Nora Patrich and Juan Manuel Sánchez, sketched while I took photographs. Every once in a while Sánchez would tell me to hold off from changing the pose of the model. Often we went to a round-the-corner café,  from my studio on Robson and Granville, called Taft’s and we would discuss ideas with our models. Sánchez and Patrich would sketch to show us. The process that we called "colaboración" opened in me an appetite for more which has been thwarted here in Vancouver. I have been unable to find like-minded people like the Argentine pair.

Working in a group was far easier than when I take photographs of a model on my own. There is always that distance that must be kept and I have to look straight ahead at the model’s eyes. The relationship of an artist and model is one that has been studied and written about and illustrated with photographs or paintings. There was even this wonderful French/Spanish co-production.

In 2017 when Rosemary and I traveled to Buenos Aires I connected with a lovely woman who posed for Nora Patrich and me at Nora’s studio in Bellavista, a suburb of Buenos Aires.

When I took the photographs here (I have not used any, that show bits, that might offend anybody.

While I have participated in many a session like this one, I cannot get used to it and I experience an excitement and wonder. I am so lucky not to be a plumber. 

Sobaco 1. m. Concavidad que forma el arranque del brazo con el cuerpo.

Regazo 1. m. Cavidad que forma, entre la cintura y las rodillas, la falda de una persona sentada.

Diccionario de la Real Academia Española

Hay palabras hermosas, música al pronunciarlas, como la del pajarito, colibrí o el árbol jacarandá (procedente de ese idioma dulce que es el guaraní).

Pero para mí, dos palabras feas (con ganas como decía me abuelita) tienen que ser el sobaco y el regazo. La primera tiene un sinónimo mejor, axila. La segunda, regazo, un lugar tan cómodo para los perros, gatos y bebes (o mi mujer cuando se atreve) se vale (mal) por si sola.

Mi abuelita nacida en Manila pero educada en Valencia fue gran influencia en mi vida. Cuando mi mamá me quería dar de chinelazos porque me había portado mal, la abuelita intercedía diciéndole a mi mamá, “Alex es un artista como yo. Hay que perdonarle.”

Me educó con refranes del Quijote y otros más. Siempre sonreía con alegría pero de vez en cuando, muy seria me decía, “Piensa mal y acertarás.”

¿Me pregunto cuanta gente que no lea el castellano creerán que las dos fotos que ilustran esta bitácora son de leve género pornográfico?

No me acuerdo del nombre de la rosa que vino del jardín pero si del cardo que realmente no lo és. Es un eringio. La modelo del sobaco tan lindo era una amiga japonesa/canadiense llamada Helen.