Rubenesque Landscape

Rubenesque Landscape

(Notes by Sharon Robinson)

Rubebesque Landscape by Sharon Robinson

In Rubenesque Landscape, Steven R. Johnson collaborated with me to portray various aspects of my life and personality. The photographs shown here are part of a larger collection. We began collaborating in January, l998, and this project is ongoing.

Having worked in alternative theatre, as a dance student and art model, I experienced a sense of invisibility at times. My self-image was deeply affected in mainstream culture as a result of my bodytype and I had a sense of being cast out, on many levels.

Learning to honor myself as a woman and as an artist I began exploring many avenues for inner healing and self-actualization. Rubenesque Landscape is part of my ongoing work in these areas.

I feel that the photos taken by Steve give me the chance to be seen, acknowledged and recognized as an imaginative and interesting person. These photos help me to find and to appreciate my authentic self.

Reproductions of  Rubenesque Landscape collage (above) 8″ x 11″ are available for $36.

You can send a check to:

Sharon Robinson, P.O. Box 895, Port Townsend, Wa. 98368.

Sharon Robinson in Series Rubenesque Landscape Photography by Steven R. Johnson #1

Steve’s awareness as a gifted photographer helps me to explore ways of seeing that may otherwise have been endangered, lost or overlooked. I believe that now and in the future, our project will be beneficial to many and valuable for broadening social perspectives of beauty. I feel that Rubenesque Landscape will help change cultural expectations that so deeply damage the self-esteem of people who do not fit into current, fashionable mores of physical beauty and personality.

I am grateful to Steve for his collaboration with me on this project, his dedication to art, and our friendship.

I believe that we need to preserve the mystery of the hidden, the unusual, the other. We need to reclaim our hidden side, our shadow, rather than projecting our unwanted inner aspects onto the despised, rejected outcast. Only in this way, I sense, can we reclaim our wholeness.

Many of my poems, experimental plays, and short stories also reflect the challenge of being a Rubenesque woman in American mainstream culture.

I am also interested in exploring the HSP trait, (the highly sensitive person) as a catalyst for social change.
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Rubenesque Landscape began as an idea to show my poetry (some reflect my self-image) with the photography of Steven R. Johnson.
As I look again at some of these photographs, I see that, in many ways, the photographs can speak for themselves, as interpreted by the viewer. Nevertheless, I have decided to include one or more of my “size esteem” poems alongside these photographs, to give the reader a sense of our initial  concept.
Perhaps one day these photographs will again be on exhibit in an art gallery with my poems, as they were at Edge of the Sea Gallery (1998-2003), and also  published as a book  (our original thought when we started our collaboration in 1997).
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Sharon Robinson in Series Rubenesque Landscape Photography by Steven R. Johnson #2

The Will To Go Forward Is Connected to the Chance to Move

she is born without shadows
her body has no illusions
no mirrors of rejection
where hope discards itself

she is born where love
grows without lies
an intimate forest

stars of flaming black
full-colored crimson white
her own sea weaves
slowly the passage

that first stage pulsation
of trembling free
a red reflection of blind abandon

and safe in her own sea mirror
large and true she can live
full within her own hope
full without shadows

dancing a practical dream
a beautiful dream without losers.
(inspired by Paul Eluard)

poem by Sharon Robinson

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Sharon Robinson in Series Rubenesque Landscape Photography by Steven R. Johnson #3

Where am I?

Where am I?
in most places
yet I’m not supposed to be here at all.
in the eyes of a greek orange cat
I bellydance
in robins eggs and tree seasons
I meander.

poem by Sharon Robinson