Romancing Julia Rae: After Peggy Phelan’s article on Portraiture

“The point is that you can’t get at the thing itself, the real nature of the sitter, by stripping away the surface. The surface is all you’ve got. You can only get beyond the surface by working with the surface.” (Borrowed Dogs, from Phelan, 37)

There are these holes in the walls that you have to look closely for, the plaster whispers "Forget me" … The light is soft and sculpted yellow amber ginger glaze. Da' comes and adjusts the infusion dependent on day light's contribution or the clothes you are wearing.

Can you see alright. I'm fine. You can read in that light? Ok thanks

yah ... I guess that’s better.

It's better now.
(Julia Rae, Epithelium)

The problem of the picture was the space, how the trees seemed to cut out place for her body. The pose rested along the chipped wood banister. She leaned into the light, waited for me to take it. That’s where I planned to take all of the portraits. I just couldn’t find the same light again.

Can I get you anything I asked a little too quickly, the strap of the camera slicing across my chest. I didn’t expect any real models to show up, but there was Julia Rae, makeup case in one hand, carrot juice in the other. I don’t even know if that was her real name.

She walked slowly through the crumbles of flowers on the stoop, sidestepped the burnt guitars leftover from a failed art project. She didn’t ask questions, her slow mouth--half open--audibly breathing. I loaded the film, almost breaking the cartridge, jamming it in like that. She didn’t notice, gazing into the lemon trees, pushing her thumbs into the leaves. I’m ready. I said.

She looked up slow, barely smiling because her mouth was still open. Both hands ran along the banister, stopping sometimes on a knot of wood or a nail whose head peeked out of the planks. She walked back and forth across the bench, stopping only feel where her body might fit. Breath lingering around my face, I crouched beside her palms, pushed the lens through the banister supports. The hands were maps made of violet lines, her veins click and thumb prints click and tooth-marks and knucklehair. There was a tiny red scab on the back of her hand click and cuticles click callouses click pores plunging in. I could have dropped my camera then, teetering on the cliff next to her.

a sharp precipice teeters over an inlet of cobalt blood. There are stepping stones with bougainvillea and icicles. There are sailboats and skislopes. And a million colors of warmth in the fall. There's something calm and exciting about this, like Easter morning egg finds or tea time. Its like tea time.

It looks like tea time.
(Julia Rae, Epithelium)

Light tapping the lemon trees like a conversation, I could hear my voice floating around us could you move a little left--yes. The way her arm didn't end at her fingers can you hold that yes. The scent of big lemons beat at my eyes turn your chin yes and look yes there. My camera lit the line on her jaw. The lips, teeth, tongue, what opened inside. I was a muscle stretched in the sun.

The ground kisses my feet every morning and I'm in constant negotiations with my levator scapulae, trapezius, and sterno cliedo mastoid. They hold on, hug tight and accuse my arms of exodus.

But you know what?

I have never, never misplaced my arms.
(Julia Rae, Epithelium)

I followed her jaw to the the soft knot of ear. There were tiny vibrations by way of the lobe: cartilage, drum, tympanic membrane. In mammals, the ear is divided in threes: the external ear, middle ear, inner ear click. It was a picture of twigs that snap in the distance.

I've often thought about how audible it was. How her hair tumbled across her broad shoulders, and light braided its way down her back. I've thought about calling, saying something about it, or listening quietly on the end of the line.

The path to Julia Rae is not an easy thing to talk about. I imagine Peggy Phelan’s concept of lure: desire as the space between the subject and object. But lets's modify this. What if lure is the space between desiring object and desiring object. Not magnetism. Not attraction. What if lure is not the path, but walking the path: the trajectory, feeling your legs stretch along the way, watching the atmosphere change. What if pleasure is Look! Look at me, moving through this space into another one. We're walking towards each other, or maybe we're walking in spite of each other. Regardless, desire seems tangled in the skinny branches of a large oak. Or something tumbling down the back of girl towards you. Or something that shakes the way we shake when we hold each other.