Artful Lodgers

I'm not sure what I was expecting the other night when I arrived at a house to shoot a story on body-painters, but Madelyn Greco wasn't it. A plume of shocking pink hair, cleavage 'til Tuesday and enough effervescence to fuel a Girl Scout troop, you could say the lady packed a visual drop-kick. With little more than a giggle she beckoned me inside the rambling home and my gear and I followed. By then it was damn near sundown and I'd already shot, written and edited my way through a full workday. In short, I was tapped. But stepping inside that house felt like taking a mild stimulant (if not a hallucinogen), so I trudged inside and waited for my eyes to adjust. When they did, my fatigued orbs feasted on the kind of eye candy that gives prescription lenses cavities. Paintings, sculptures and enough photography of decorated body parts to make even a seasoned lenslinger eyeball his tripod.

But I wasn't there to get off on the decor. I was there to work. So Madelyn - who I wasn't surprised to learn enjoyed a local following as a burlesque dancer - ushered me to an inner room. There, a mysterious figure stood hunched over a slender blonde woman and slathered paint on her far from repulsive stomach. Actually, 'slather' is the wrong word. Rather, Scott Fray applied deliberate dabs of color like the incredibly talented artist he is. About that time, Madelyn squeezed in the room, said something I didn't hear and joined her fiance in turning an attractive young woman into the kind of creature you might see spinning in circles outside Burning Man. Slowly I looked around at my three new friends and smiled. Clearly, these people needed a cameraman in their lives...

So, I did what I always do: I made small talk while convincing the trio to ignore me. Once I'd set up a single light (it was late and I was feeling lazy), I shouldered my miniaturized axe and moved in. As Fray and Greco worked on their art, I worked on mine - though fatigue, distraction and one tiny ass workspace prevented me from obtaining the kind of wide shots I'd yearn for later in an edit bay. Oh well, if I didn't match the creative duo's advanced technique with my own, I more than made up for it in the interview. Actually, that was on them too, for Scott and Madelyn displayed a trait not often found in unbridled artistic types. They were ... lucid, tangent-free, cerebral. Best of all was Scott, who - when not deferring to his more telegenic partner - let loose with a treatise so reasoned, so focused, so cogent, it was the kind of verbiage you'd expect from a court-appointed attorney, not some dude who paints otherworldly splendor on ingenues' private parts. As for slathering anything on ME, there's only one problem...

Too furry.