My Dreams Sparkle

Venus Reborn Diary Notes 12/13/25

Venus Reborn marks a threshold in my figurative practice, an evolution that emerged after a sense of completion with The Painted Nude. That earlier work remains alive in my studio as a ritual of presence, healing, and embodied freedom for those who desire to have the experience. It is a practice I return to with the heart through a process I know intimately and provide as a commissioned experience.

Venus Reborn arose from a desire to step beyond that familiar terrain and enter a new dimension of exploration, one that engages sensuality as sacred, and form as a living language. Like learning a new tongue and immersing oneself in its culture, this work demanded a reorientation of materials, process, and perception. It became an invitation, a new portal, into the domain of the divine feminine, approached with deep reverence.

Where The Painted Nude emphasized sculptural presence through paint, its protective veil, its capacity to empower and liberate, Venus Reborn asked a different question: could sensuality itself become a sacred journey, held with integrity and clarity? Could such a space be honored within the standards of a museum or a revered gallery, and more importantly, within the truth of my own heart? History offered both caution and courage. Artists before me faced resistance when traversing similar ground, yet time revealed the necessity of their vision. I chose to enter this inquiry fully, not knowing the outcome, trusting the work to reveal its own integrity.

This exploration was inseparable from my life partnership. As a married artist working with the nude form for decades, trust, deep, lived trust, has always been foundational. Freedom, I have come to understand, is born from trust: trust between partners, trust with participants, and trust in one’s own inner truth. Without it, we are unmoored. With it, the heart becomes a compass, what I call the GPS of our true potential, guiding us back into alignment with who we are.

Venus Reborn was designed as a sacred process. Each session began with preparation and ritual: scent, sound, touch, and stillness, offered as a way to awaken the senses and align the participant with her own inner goddess. This initiation was guided by my wife, Jude, who served as the guardian of the threshold, not as performance, but as presence. She prepared each participant, nurturing activation of the feminine before the photographic journey began.

There was no paint, no haste, only a gradual unfolding. Music and meditative attention guided the process. The camera became the primary instrument, witnessing a state of release and expansion where identities softened and a shared field of trust and vulnerability emerged. These were collaborations in the truest sense: artist and subject meeting in presence, courage, and openness, allowing something singular to come into being.

The energy expressed was sensual but never exploitative, there was no touch, no fusion of bodies, no personal gratification sought. What unfolded was a space of allowing, a valve opened into a realm of beauty where the sacred feminine could be experienced, honored, and translated into art form. Some of this energy remains intangible; some crystallizes as Venus Reborn.

In the years since the initial sessions, the work has entered its next phase. I return to the analog processes that shaped me in my late teens and 20’s, Polaroids, experimental techniques, multiple exposures, light leaks, embracing the consequences and “happy accidents” of these methods. I work intuitively, following what I call the popcorn trails of light intuition: gestures that move freely between pencil, brush, photograph, and word. Nothing is contrived; everything is allowed through surrender.

From this process, a body of work is emerging, two new pieces at present, with the intention to build a complete collection. Venus Reborn is conceived as a doorway into the sacred sensual feminine, offered to women and men alike. It is a bridge, an energetic meeting place, where inspiration awakens, and where the highest frequency I am able to align with finds form.

I see art as a revealing, reflecting where the artist’s conscious is as a conduit. My responsibility, then, is alignment: to live the principles the work embodies. Through a practice of love and truth, training body, heart, and mind toward coherence with the higher self, what emanates carries that resonance. Venus Reborn is the record of that alignment at this moment in time. In many ways, my consciousness waited for this work, allowing me to grow into the capacity required to hold it.

As a masculine presence, my role is to offer foundation and trust, conditions in which the feminine heart can safely flower. Through this practice, this principle, this devotion, Venus Reborn comes into being.

My Polaroid SLR 680 SE:

My 1940’s Smith Corona typewriter: