Consider this your personal invitation to checkout my photography exhibit at Once Over Coffee Bar. Currently, twelve of sixteen (or 17? 18?) images from my series The Architecture of Women are on display. The show runs through December, so you have lots of time to venture over and grab a coffee or adult beverage, enjoy the gorgeous patio at Once Over and support me! It's a win win win.  

All of the framed pieces are for sale, as are limited edition prints of each. *Anything piece currently hanging must remain in its place until I can replace it with another or the show comes to a close.

All other prints are available through me or through my gallery at Saatchi Art.

We can't have a proper art opening because of COVID, so please drop in if you get a chance.

If you  do go, please take a photo or a selfie and tag me on Instagram @ChristieStockstillArt and use the hashtag #thearchitectureofwomen to help me get the word out!

In the meantime, below you will find a bit more about the series, as well as a few of the images that I couldn't squeeze into the show the first time 'round. 

As always, you know how thankful I am for your love and support! I'm just so thrilled to have this work out there for people to see in real life!

about the series

The Architecture of Women

I stepped out of the shower and saw my reflection in the steamed-up bathroom mirror. All I could really make out was my shape, the length of my arms, my small waste and curvy hips. I couldn’t really see my face, or splotchy skin. I couldn’t estimate the size of my thighs or my chest. I was pleased with the form I saw in the mirror that I recognized as my own body but am usually too critical about the details to truly value.

We so often get distracted by the small “imperfect” details—a wrinkle, a mole, acne, cellulite—that we fail to appreciate just how phenomenal the female body is. These remarkable bodies make other people, battle diseases, run marathons, tend to families, work full-time jobs, run households, create art, heal themselves and work to heal others... We feel, we sweat, we ache, we endure, we inspire.

Human bodies, I realized, are proof of the complex and carefully designed genius of form meeting function—architecture.

My visual artist brain went right to artistic elements, such as color, lines, texture, space and principles of design like harmony, balance, emphasis and contrast. Then I thought of the connection to composing music and how musical architecture refers to the overall structure or plan of a piece of music.  

I got so excited about how the same elements that go into creating art, architecture and music, those pillars of culture, can also be used in reference to the female body. Rhythm, texture, proportion, dynamics, texture, harmony. 

Like music, like architecture, like poetry, like art, 

Woman.

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A note about the process of shooting each image: 

I made each image by aiming my camera at a mirror that I had sprayed, spritzed or smeared with various substances like water, oils, deodorant, hair spray, whatever seemed fun to try. I wanted to create real texture and mystery without adding texture layers in post-production. As best I could, I would remove Photoshop from the process and use my fingers to do more than press a shutter button. What would be the point of working with women to help them see how amazing they are, if afterwards, I go on to perform digital plastic surgery? 

Each image was shot with me just to the side of the woman, shooting the reflection in the mirror. An unexpected but not that surprising result of shooting that way was that she could see herself, see what I was seeing, which seemed to inspire more confidence. The only post work would be to crop me out of the shot, straighten the image and tweak the perspective to be more straight-on.