The Publication, San Diego's Arts Magazine
March 2000

Body Painting

"A body print is more connected with the body than any other form of representation: drawing, painting, or photography, simply because it is the actual energy of the body that is laid on the canvas." Says Pamela

Sunday night
Dear Diary, What an amazing weekend! I've got traces of vaseline in my hair and orange paint between my toes, I'm pleasantly tired, well-fed, and simmering with inspiration, information and a lust for color. It's funny- the main reason I signed up for this workshop was to get to know Pamela better, spend some time in her very cool artist's home and have someone else feed me. I didn't think a whole lot about what we'd actually be doing… until Pamela mailed me the materials list.: "spray bottle, shower cap, object for altar, mortar & pestle, CD's you love, walking shoes, bathing suit (or not), bits of stone & bones, fabric, ribbons, pictures…" Hmmm….just what was I getting into?

I left home with my bag of odd & meaningful treasures and returned two days later with a real presence, on canvas, of a spirit who's been trying to get through for a long time. Yes, Flaming Woman lives. She's supported by, or growing out of, the Green Woman, who was created out of my own back. Before I did anything else, I had to hang her on the wall across from my bed. I couldn't just plop her down somewhere. She wouldn't allow it. How did she emerge? It wasn't quite as simple as coating myself with paint and lying down on a piece of canvas. Pamela led us through a range of spiritual and artistic processes to get to that point. We started with a tour of the house, including much of Pamela's art. Each piece holds a story, and as Pamela talked, her reverence for the Mysterious Source became clear. For Pamela, everything is alive- even her house, which she says is always happy after a bodywriting retreat.

We lit candles of different colors to understand the chakra energies and placed objects on the altar that represented our bodies, which helped us get to know each other, where our sore spots and deep longings were. I've been into orange lately without knowing why- even compulsively painted a wide swath of it across my studio wall recently- so was glad to find out that orange is about creativity, sexuality and money.

Amidst all the great food, great hot-tubbing and lots of story-swapping, Pamela kept us working. She's got a strange & delightful mix going of taskmaster and party-girl- I don't know how she does it, but it works. And the thing is, we wanted to work. The more we worked, the more we didn't want to stop. By the end of the first night we'd already collaged a journal, developed a list of personal attractions to images, shapes & colors, and slathered up with vaseline to make a series of sample prints. I loved the camraderie and matter-of-factness of women working together, naked. Sure, if we were walking across a beach we'd be all weird and self-conscious, but we had a job to do. Each body, regardless of, -no-, because of its particular shape, weight and history, was loaded with tender information, which spilled out, like grandma's jewelry, while we worked.

The magic happened on Sunday, after a visit to the nearby Yoni Rock. Its natural shape enhanced by local Indians, it continues to be a sacred source of feminine energy and appears in several of Pamela's pieces. Back at the studio, we worked with one of our prints, doing that art-dance of going forward with a certain idea or intention, then standing back in awe to see what it had in mind. Kathryn was amazed to see her print take the form of a mermaid. An earlier print from the other side of the paper bled through to suggest a rock for the mermaid to sit on and Kathryn graced the mermaid's scales with colored lace. Mary took the plunge into color, bemused at all the pink that was going down on the canvas. "Pink!? But I don't even like pink!" Now she does, and the painting hangs in the center of her house. As for me, I had to gasp when I saw that the drips streaming from "my" knees, shoulder, thighs, and yoni, were actually flames.

Of course it wasn't all light and beauty. There was plenty of room for the constructive dark; times of stuckness and dislike, deep tears of old sorrow, the usual ragged gang of fears. We cranked up Janis and kept going. The energy got intense as we worked to finish our paintings, until at last we could all stand back, in some kind of peace. We managed to settle down enough to do a closing ritual of writing three things we wanted to release, then watching each paper slowly burn. I was startled by a "typo" that happened on the last of my three strips- I'd written, "I release my refusal to let right action flow through me," but when I unfolded it, "action" had turned into "anger!" Oh my.

3 months later
The Flaming Woman is fully with me. (One friend calls her "Flamer.") Several friends have come over to meet her and their impressions keep the energy and the information rolling. One said she didn't see flames, but wounds. Mom's only comment was, "ah, the burning bush!" One said the flames look "restrained" and got out the thesaurus and read to me, "hindered, hobbled, limited, repressed, shackled, fettered, boxed up, bottled up, corked up,…." until I had to yell, "enough already!" Geez. Nothing worse than hobbled flames. But I gotta tell ya, I'm less repressed every day. The Flamer has awakened me more than once in the wee hours, disturbed over something I'd adapted to during the day, to let me know, "this will not do…" She is wild, triumphant and sorrowful. She knows what I need, and protects me by becoming, well… enflamed, at any attempts, by self or others, to distract me from my true desires.

You don't have to be an artist to attend Pamela's Bodywriting© retreat but you will be one when you leave. It's true. That's not really what it's about though. It's about that saying I saw recently on a t-shirt: "Start a Revolution- Stop Hating Your Body." It's about getting tired of despairing over what we don't have or wish we didn't have, and instead, using, and even glorying in, what we have been given.

"When we shift our understanding of our personal history, we are successful at perceiving our body with new eyes."

The Publication
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San Diego, CA 92101-7349
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Article by Donna Sewitch Otter (760)789-9936, SewitchArt@aol.com