Page 26 - WTPO Vol. VII #5

The “Freckled Woman”
On a hot summer day, the Salinas Gallery was show- ing John Andrea’s super-realistic sculpture, “Freckled Woman,” a full-size nude sculpture of a young woman. Numerous people, glad to be in an air-conditioned building, wearing as few clothes as appropriate, were walking around it, observing it from every angle, awestruck at the incredible ability of the artist to reproduce the skin and anatomy of a human body, with every curve, bump, mole, wrinkle, and, in this case, freckles. Observers expected at any moment for the sculpture to stop its frozen pose and walk away, as if it was a mime. Though a sign asked viewers not to touch the sculpture, several could not resist to prove to themselves that her “flesh” had no warmth. Many looked away when their eyes met the sculp- ture’s eyes, wondering if a real being was entombed underneath the manufactured skin.
“My god, you’re right, it looks just like you!” Becca said to her friend Victoria, both dressed in shorts and halter tops but still not yet cooled off from the blister- ing heat outside. “That’s your face, your dimple, your triple earrings in the left ear.”
“Now do you believe me?!” Victoria said, her face intentionally veiled by large sunglasses. “Now was the trip worth it? I told you. Even my weird little toe on my right foot.”
“Oh my god, look!” Becca added, pointing. “The mole.”
“Fine, yes. The mole on my back.”
“OK, he had to be at the life class,” Becca said, throwing up her arms, “how else could this be? He was there and saw you nude. There’s no other explanation, Vicky. Too much detail. After all, he lives in the same city as you.”
“No, I checked, twice,” Victoria said. “Everyone in there was a painter.”
At first the class seemed a possibility. After all, Victo- ria thought, only in the public life class was she nude, and only the front of her body was seen by the group. How could someone have captured so much detail of her whole body?
“Someone somehow photographed or videoed you,” Becca said, “and sent it to him.”
Eventually, the answer lit up Victoria’s mind. When she was in university and needed money, a photographer had paid her for several nude shots and she had signed
a form that allowed him to sell them. Perhaps he had made a video without her knowledge. This sculptor had clearly bought these photos or seen a video.
Regardless how it happened, Victoria could not believe the likeness. To see her face and form in sculp- ture was strange enough. But even more remarkable to Victoria was to look at how the artist had perfectly copied her feet, her neck, her hips, her breasts, her pubic area, her whole figure. It even seemed like her skin. The artist had captured her physical being.
“Unbelievable!” Becca spoke loudly in astonishment. “I mean, I feel like going up and talking to it and say- ing, ‘What’s up, Vicky.’”
“Shhh!” Victoria whispered. “Yes, it’s me. Except for one big difference.”
The “Freckled Woman” had freckles all over her body. ~
After taking the tour around the sculpture, they found a bench up against the far wall, at the other end from the sculpture.
“What should you do?” Becca asked quietly. “Sue him? He’s exposing you. To everyone! Thank god this show is a thousand miles away. If this was shown at home in a local gallery or museum, everyone would know it was you. Think what your parents would say.”
Victoria smiled.
“I’m jealous of the attention it gets from that guy.” “Who you looking at?” Becca asked.
“See that guy right in front of the sculpture?” “That cute guy with black hair?”
“Uh-huh.”
~
Victoria was staring at the tall and lanky Andrew, who saw the photo of the sculpture in the newspaper a month before the exhibition came to town and nervous- ly waited each day for the show to open. When it finally arrived, he lingered at the gallery during its open hours and pined for the sculpture when it was closed.
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D.D. renforth