Why my gods are nude

Nudity is beautiful.

I have never shied away from drawing or painting the nude human form. The human figure is amazing and beautiful in its own way. There was never a hesitation in depicting it in art. Until my senior year in college. I did projects which depicted nudity and people were a little surprised. This began to make me feel like depicting the body in its glory was shameful. A standard that conservative beliefs imprinted on us since the beginning. Then I came upon paganism and the body was once more cherished.

I create art. Spiritual art that depicts gods and spirits. At a few points when selling my paintings I was asked to tweak them, to hide the figure of the female goddess shown. So I did. Not all of them were in full nude but enough of this or that was exposed to make the person uncomfortable. It was minor but it still gave me the uneasy feeling that nudity was not acceptable.

My guess is that most of society sees ‘nude’ and thinks ‘sex.’ And if your nudity or exposure is not for sex or pleasure then its just plain wrong. Kind of like how the breast feeding in public issue is coming up. But that is another story for another place.

Here is why my gods are nude.

Because nudity is natural. Nudity is beautiful and real. There are no secrets to be hidden or shame to be masked. The gods are bright beings and why would they try to hide that light with fabric? They are free of the human ‘dignities’ we have in our minds. And because they are free they can afford to be true and brave. No other god shows this better than Hethert. This goddess has never shown her beauty to me clothed and robed. She bursts out in natural, untouched splendor because she is fierce and a thing of wildness. Hethert knows her brightness and knows I can handle that part of her wildness. She is unashamed and she expresses that to me in her natural nude beauty.

In my paintings my gods are nude because they love their forms and are not afraid to show it.