BWW Blog: Ride That Naked Bus - Reflections from a Nude Model at NYC Bodypainting Day

We were all naked. All 100 or so of us models for the 2nd annual NYC Bodypainting Day-created by artist, Andy Golub. Andy says the event represents "artistic expression, body acceptance, and the human connection being made by art." I add body celebration and the human connection department took me to a level I could not have predicted.

The 70 plus artists remain clothed. We are packed into a scene that blends the 6-color palette allotment yet contrasts as the artists are doing such different things with the same 6 colors. The red, green, yellow, white, black, and blue are being splashed and stroked, spread and squiggled, smeared and scribed by artists with brushes, sponges, stencils and sprays on their nude model canvasses-who are adult men and women-large, small, young, old, black, white, yellow, red (before the paint), gay, straight, petite, statuesque, fat, thin, hairy, hairless, able-bodied, and wheel-chaired. This is done in a sectioned off area at Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza-East 47th St. and 2nd Ave. in New York City. Quite public. The police were there to protect us just in case anything or anyone got weird. They were on our side.

I had a basic outline for what to expect that day. I had been painted before, but this was my virgin experience out in the city, the heat, the sun, with bystanders, surrounded by lots of activity and port-o-potties, and with this artist, body painter Margie Nugent. I knew I'd have a ticket for some kind of free lunch and that we'd be doing a march to the United Nations for a group photo. Then there was going to be a double decker bus ride for 2 hours and ultimately an after party to look forward to at a club in the East Village-complete with air conditioning, cold drinks, food, and a DJ.

Getting your naked body painted is a wonderful experience. At first, as the paint goes on, you feel the cool temperature of the liquid on your skin, and suddenly see splashes of color on you that look like an accident in art class. Then, as the artist gets into their design, their rhythm, something begins to take shape and when you get a chance to glance down, you don't recognize your arm, your belly, your breasts anymore. A transformation is underway. You go from feeling naked to feeling clothed by the paint, by the art, and a freedom is born in you to be a walking, talking piece of artwork. It's fabulous.

After almost 4 hours of being painted, the artwork is done, but the experience is just about to begin. I see two beautiful red double-decker buses lurking in the background down the street, idling their engines. Blow horn! "Models over there!" "Artists, do this!" "Everyone! Do that and go there!" Okay! We will! And, "Get the banners on the busses!"

Two buses drive up alongside us displaying huge, unabashed, unapologetic banners with photos of painted bodies, saying, "Andy Golub presents Bodypainting Day." A thrill went up and down my spine. My bodymind. My soul and my heart and my everything. I got the first hit of, wow, we are gonna do something now. This wasn't all just to get painted.

En route walking from Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza to the UN I tried to stick with my artist but felt absorbed by a wave of momentum. I finally gave up trying to direct myself and swam with the current of nude bodies and artists mixed and moving like a living organism, undulating together. I went with the flow of the river and opened up to the wonderful feeling of walking naked, down the streets of New York City-legally-painted like a Bee Warrior Woman, feeling the sun on my bare skin, boobs swaying in the breeze, and stopping to pose for-yes-pictures with an elderly Japanese couple who were smiling so hard at the photo op I think I made their year. I at least made their photo album.

The buses are parked right in front of the frikkin' UN for Christ's sake. This is so cool. Wait! Where's my artist? She has my stuff. My purse, bag, clothes, car keys. And, I want to be with her! I'm already on top of bus #1. There she is-down there! Yell! Margie! Come on this bus! Whew, she's on. I saw my purple bag on her shoulder. Time to relax and enjoy this bus tour around the city, right?

We are on the open-top of a double-decker bus in Manhattan driving right under streetlights, signs, and trees. Of course, we all stand for the whole 2-hour ride. Instinctually, we all start waving to people on the street right away. We wave our arms, shout, hoot and holler with exuberance. They look up-their faces show shock, disbelief, some smile right away, some wave, most look like they don't know if they're allowed to smile or wave. But they look. Many take pictures.

I get my first hit of the mission.

This is not an everyday sighting, and I get that I have to give peeps their due delayed reaction time. When you're walking down a busy city street, or sitting waiting for a bus, it's got to be a pretty wild hit to suddenly be confronted by huge, red, bannered, double-decker buses with what must look like blobs of colorful, moving, human statues-all waving, shouting, making a joyous uproar. And looking right at you. Waving at you. They're not that far away. They are making eye contact. Are they naked? Is that skin? What are they doing? Who are they representing? How did they get up there? Where did they come from? Is this good? Is this bad? Are they just freaks? And, of course, is this legal?

WTF, right?

Yet, for me, the amount of leeway, of delayed reaction, of wariness, is what I found so revealing. The direct observation of many people walking through their inner door from suspicion to joy, at varying speeds, was exhilarating as I saw life move inside these people. Some did not walk through. To watch people in the very act of choosing-deciding-not to open, not to smile, not to cross the threshold from closed to open, over and over on each block, with every turn, in every crowd, was stunning, riveting, and saddening. More intimate than seeing someone without their clothes on-painted or not.

Up on the bus, I spoke out loud whatever I was noticing to whoever was listening among my proximate comrades. One woman said my running commentary was the best part-she kept laughing, and seeing what I was seeing. The people on the street were the show! Not us! They were literally showing us who they were, where their openness lives, and where it dies. We were the catalyst, the invitation. I felt we were on a spiritual mission to offer just amoment of opening up to exuberant joy. I was in my element, brimming with observations, excitement, enthusiasm to the core of my being. Block after block, turn after turn, intersection after intersection, neighborhood after neighborhood we kept giving it, giving us, giving our all to the public at large-offering, inviting, sharing, welcoming our fellow and sister humans into their "Yes!"

A lot of people did receive us. We got thumbs up, waves, smiles, some hootin' and hollerin' right back at us. I saw families with children where the kids saw us first and waved tentatively, then the parents realized what was going on and joined the fun, or not. The construction workers loved us-no shock there-and the fire departments, the young guys, the doormen coming out of their air-conditioned cubicles into the heat of the street to take pictures, smiling. I particularly loved a certain kind of woman-self-possessed-looking women-who gave us a devilish smile and subtle nod that said, "Yeah, baby, that's the way you do it, I could do that, I want to do that, that lives in me, too, I get you and I get this and Yes, Yes, Yes!" I loved them, and the ones who broke out into dance and jubilation with us, and the unstable-looking guy who took his pants down, shouting with joy.

And then there was the Muslim couple. We were stopped at a red light. He immediately turned away and talked to someone behind him, ignoring us completely. She, with only her eyes showing through the slit of her face covering, leaned her back against the store window and looked at us. For a full minute. Then she, too, turned away to face the building. I wanted to cry then, but on to the next wave! To the next heart. Open? Wanna join this magic with us? Just for a moment? Give it up! Say Yes!

I found myself shouting out to people as they looked up at us incredulously, "Yes, this is really happening! Oh, Yes!" with huge smiles and waves for them. I felt so generous. So alive. So free to give, give, give! The shy teen boys smiling and looking away, though they wanted to look more; the teen girls with literal jaw-dropping astonishment; the disapproving old women and the hearty middle-aged men who said Yes! With the young couples sometimes the woman beamed wide, loving it, with the boyfriend stunned motionless; sometimes it was the other way around. One of my favorites was a young, obese man who looked up at us as he stopped to take us in, read the banner, and then say to us, with a wave, "Happy Bodypainting Day!" very matter-of-fact like he really just got it and accepted it. And maybe he saw he could even be up there with us. It went on and on, so many reactions.

But it was getting hot. We all needed to pee and we needed water. It was tiring feeling the stress about the very real threat that my tall comrade right next to me might lose his head on a streetlight and constantly yelling, "Trees!" "Light!" "Duck!"

Andy had his blow horn in the bus behind us and when we were stopped in front of the statue of Atlas holding up the world on 5th Ave., I heard him, and then a wave of messengers pass on, "Get off the bus! Everyone off the bus!" "Group shot!"

Atlas group shot, New York Library group shot, Washington Square Park group shot. It was a lot to get off that magic bus, down into the crowds, mix with people a bit, get someone's sweaty, painted ass rubbing against my hot, painted stomach and smudge my paint even more. Such commitment we all had. And then at Washington Square, an impromptu jazz blast dance to a lone saxophonist who just got the best audience of his life for 5 minutes. We didn't have any money on us to put in his jar, but we danced and pranced and were quite a colorful, jubilant bunch of beings.

Back on the bus, next stop, the club in the East Village. The crowds on the street definitely change. We are home. Two women run from their posts working at a boutique on Bowery and take their shirts off on the sidewalk, exposing their lovely breasts! Mardis Gras! People get us down here! Yet we still got blank stares through the glass windows at the café in Whole Foods. Then we go down a side street and catch a couple in the act of tucking themselves behind a partition for a toke. We get the thumbs up from them as we see the smoke waft from her lips. Yes!

Turning the corners rounding toward our club was the best homecoming in the world. We made it. We did it. We changed the world a little today. We may have changed some people's lives today. I know mine changed. I am now officially addicted to Bodypainting Day.

(photo by Leif Grafix)