Posing for Spencer

LesbosOnTheCouch by Beth C, one of the Lesbos

Apparently nothing stops me. Apparently I have finally reached that point in my life when I do what I want to do.  Apparently I really do do what I want. Apparently this can be a good thing – so it is.

A few weeks ago My Love sent me a link. I thought it was clear enough. Spencer Tunick was to be in Israel for a photo shoot on the Dead Sea, the lowest place on earth, an endangered and beautiful biblical area, slowly disappearing – evaporating into space.  His team was looking for about a thousand models to pose for him. I read the article. I signed up… simple.

So what did you think of the article? says my Love.

Oh, I already signed up and sent it in.

What? Really? Okay – let's do it!

And so it began. My adventure as a Spencer Tunick model…

We didn't tell anyone we knew we were to join the shoot. And the organizers didn't tell anyone where at the Dead Sea the shoot was to be.  They didn't want the paparazzi and the politicians to interfere. And we didn't want our friends to influence and comment about our participation before the fact. When we got the directions – where to meet the bus at 11:30 at night, we still hadn't really told anybody we were doing this and the organizers still hadn't told anybody where it was to be…We were in cahoots, the organizers and My Love and I.  Telling somebody would have given somebody the ability to point out to us what we were actually about to do through their eyes. And telling everybody would have compromised the shoot for Spencer Tunick.  

Spencer Tunick's pictures are world famous. He's the 'crazy' artist who photographs hundreds of people nude in very public places…and then his pictures are sold and appear in very public places. But we knew that – one of the reasons we wanted to do it was because those who pose in his pictures get a copy of the real thing! …A real Spencer Tunick picture, with us in it at the Dead Sea, in the nude…of us in the nude at the Dead Sea. The same picture that will appear in people's homes, on line, in museums of us nude in the Dead Sea, the lowest place on earth.

As the day approached, I 'googled' Spencer Tunick and his work.  Lots of people… lots of bodies… lots of butts… And lots of boobs… Butts and boobs… Boobs and butts... lots of them, in lots of vey spectacular places. Wow…I would get to be one of those bodies in a spectacular place… There was something amazing just thinking about it. The oneness of all the nakedness – of all of us being there – just being there and naked for the picture and the art and the cause

And now that I had my own eyes, I thought nobody would really recognize me anyway…right? my eyes, my boobs, my butt, my big jelly belly and all those other people with theirs…at the Dead Sea …alive today once more for a single photo shoot in the year 2011 before it disappears forever…And me and all my parts, am there.

So we got on the bus in the middle of the night…and road to the designated secret beach at the Dead Sea. It was dark and the night was full of stars. People joked. People dozed…we sat and listened and watched the sky and dosed ourselves.

Spencer came and gave directions. We could keep our clothes on until the very last minute. And then we were to go into the sea.  The Dead Sea shoot was actually in the Dead Sea itself. We thought that we would be near the sea, on the dry salty plateaus that have become even drier in the last 2 decades…

At first, for all of the excitement, nobody really heard or paid attention to the directions.  As soon as Spencer said something about clothes – everybody started stripping in the dark… and then pretty much we were all just kind of naked…naked and waiting for the sun to begin to rise…

My love and I thought we would be the last in the water so that we could get out easier and not go in so deep. My love and I thought – but we didn't think it through…

At some point, after we had gotten directions from Spencer, and after we were already in the water lying on our backs, I heard through the bull horn, ''Ma'am…Ma'am, you there... I know this is hard for you – but you are in the first row of my picture – if you can't keep your body still, you can get out of the water. ''

I looked up and saw that Spencer Tunick was indeed talking to me. What, me? Uh oh…didn't think…first row…bobbing boobs, big bobbing belling…first row. Snap Snap…Guess I got my body still…with boobs a bobbing.

And we continued to get directions and we continued to bob in the water. The Dead Sea is denser than any other body of water. It's thick and oily like Grandma's chicken soup…and so in this thick soup you cannot get your buoyant parts to go down. For the entire shoot in the Dead Sea, I felt my buoyance….my old songs --- babababa booby bop…bababab booby bop, took on a whole new meaning…My boobs just bopped and bobbled, too…my jelly belly bopped, my butt bopped…And it was amazing! It was all truly amazing!

The sun rose and shone. Spencer gave us directions: get down on your knees and let the water move you up and down (booby bop), lie this way on the water with your head north and feet south (belly and booby bop), face the Jordanian mountains and stand still (keep from bopping)…walk onto the rise and stand still – ouch those salty dry grounds really hurt…

The beauty was intense. The oneness and the Oneness were even more intense. I was there. We were there. My Love and I, a part of history, a part of art – just us and our bodies and 1000 others ---Posing for Spencer Tunick.