Charis Wilson
[Model, b. 1914, San Francisco, d. 2009, Santa Cruz, California.]
I knew I really didn’t look that good, and that Edward [Weston] had glorified me, but it was a very pleasant thing to be glorified and I couldn’t wait to go back for more.
If the face appears, the picture is inevitably a portrait and the expression of the face will dictate the viewer's response to the body.
Usually when people got to know us a little, someone would look very seriously and say, “Would you mind telling me how— what it was that brought you two together?” And Edward [Weston] would give an anticipatory smirk and say, “Sex.”
Altogether it was a magical place. The silence and emptiness, the beauty of the wind-sculptured forms, the absence of any living things besides ourselves—all these combined to give me an exhilarating sense of freedom. As soon as the sun warmed things up, I took off my clothes and began diving down a steep slope... I was reminded of the childhood games of statues as I kept returning to the top of the bank to relaunch myself, and each slide down ended in a more abandoned position.
(On posing nude at 22 in the Oceano dunes for her 50-year-old lover Edward Weston.)
Well, there’s a famous limerick on [making love with the model]:
While Titian was mixing rose madder,
His model was posed on a ladder,
Her position to Titian,
Suggested coition,
So he ran up the ladder and had her.
While Titian was mixing rose madder,
His model was posed on a ladder,
Her position to Titian,
Suggested coition,
So he ran up the ladder and had her.