Guest-blogger: Sophie Ragir!
I am ecstatic that Sophie has finally written a statement I get to add to the book, Lifesize Pieces of Women I Love. It’s about her experience of modeling for me and growing up in my studio environment. Here it is, its fabulous…Thank you Sophie!
“I wish I could remember more about the experience of being sculpted at eight years old. What is most powerful in my memory is spending my childhood and young adulthood in her studio, meeting an array of powerful and beautiful women as I watched her ideas come to fruition.
It has been a great blessing, as well as a struggle to grow up as the daughter of an artist who explores the female form. Growing up in my mother’s studio, forced me to explore what it means to be beautiful. To be a young girl looking at beautiful woman was hard at times, as comparisons and ideas of “the perfect female body” came into question. Yet, to see women of all shapes, size, and age be portrayed as beautiful because of who they are—the uniqueness of their form, and the subtleties of their body—became an empowering experience.
When I look at my mothers work, I see an anthology of natural beauty—an admiration of authenticity, individuality, paradox and contradiction. My favorite pieces have little to do with the shape or age of the female portrayed. I am reminded, as a young woman, that what I love about these women my mother has sculpted and what I love about the pieces themselves is their authenticity. It is not the flat stomachs or perfect breasts that make me love my mom’s work, but the celebration of complexities and the beauty of the imperfections.”
-Sophie Ragir
I realized that I have only had pictures of Sophie on this blog. I do have an extraordinary other (child.) His name is Jonah. He is, among other things, a killer base baritone classical singer and I love him to death. Here he is being adorable.
