tenthousandlux: Minerva Jayne

     What is beauty? Timeless question behind art making since its inception. Ideals of beauty are relative to the age in which they are created, but always revolve around the female form and its representation and its frequent personification of the divine. The Greeks and Romans left a mythology of gods and goddesses, heroes and lovers, that endured for centuries in Western art. Their lyrical and visual vocabulary expressed our pursuit of beauty, the worship of our beautiful human form, and our connection to the spirit world.

     Venus gave her roll as sex goddess to Marilyn who passed it on to Kate.

     But have we lost all connection to the divine nature of beauty? We no longer have gods and goddesses - spirits, powers, allegoric beings made in our image, to whom we may whisper our dreams and fears. Even the icons and idols of the last century still seem beyond the scope of our ordinary, mortal selves while 21st century stars are no more than the sum of their photoshopped bodies and designer selling power. The vocabulary of beauty has been conquered by the secular - the cult of celebrity and the worship of fame and endorsements. Zeus and Athena have been replaced by Brangelina and Madonna, nymphs and satyrs by reality t.v. personalities. Nothing is sacred anymore, but that is old news isn't it.

Enter Minerva Jayne.

When I first met Minerva Jayne I wanted to make a portrait about beauty and self-expression in relation to gender and stereotypes. Describing herself as Boise, Idaho's "most notorious Blonde Bombshell! a crazy, spontaneous, glamorous girl with something -extra-", her wit and cultural references are as impressive as her hairstyling talents. Minerva Jayne is from a small town in Gem County, Idaho called Emmett. For 10 years, she lived "everyday very, very done."

"I looked more like the girl next door in high school. I wore eye makeup but no, like, lipstick or anything. I was way more toned down than I am now"

"Minerva Jayne's the identity. It's more about expression; I try to paint it up to look like what the inside looks like. It really hit me like a ton of bricks at 13, and that's when things started. It just came out of this need to be pretty, I guess"

It was a conversation with Minerva Jayne about beauty, sensuality and goddesses that led me to start thinking about all this. Also, it is always very inspiring to meet people who know very clearly who/what they idolize, worship, believe in - people who have created their own personal pantheon, people who know who they are. I thought of her portrait with a nod to those lost goddesses, inspirations, and celebrations of the female form - celebrating who she is. That is beautiful.

We looked to Botticelli's nature spirits and goddess - I love the body language of the Greeks via the Renaissance, the dainty divine fingers and the perfectly proportional tilt of the hips and head....