Transfigurations

This past Friday night was the premiere/reception for Jana Marcus' new work entitled Transfigurations: The Making of a Woman. She also premiered new work for her Transfigurations: The Making of a Man, as well. After driving to Santa Cruz, I popped in to this nice little place called the Attic. I met up with Jana, her SO, and a few other friends who had been photographed and made the trip for the premiere.

The panels are great, and she was able to throw together a good summary of our own transitions, our lives, and what it means to be who we are. On one wall, she had pictures of the guys, while on another wall, she had pictures of the girls. I know a few of the women, and even passed along the project info to a few of them. I also know a few of the guys, which is how I heard about the project in the first place.

She has a number of different photos for both the guys and girls. In the men's series, she has one guy going thru chest surgery, then a year after taking hormones. His transformation is incredible. She also has several nudes of the guys showing the different options for down below, as well as one more series of a guy going thru top surgery and hormones. For the women, she also has pictures of the different options down below, and is doing a series on FFS and breast augmentation. Your's truly is one of her subjects for the boobs. We haven't shot the 'after' pictures yet, but we'll probably be doing them soon.

Here is a picture of me in front of my panel. She didn't have all of the panels up for this show, keeping most of the nudes down for later shows. I don't remember her philosophy on that, but I think the pictures she had were very moving. A lot of people were astounded by the pictures and captions...with a number of people saying they were brought to tears.

I was able to chat with Jana a little more during and after the show. It appears the show is pretty well booked around the country for quite a while, but she is still trying to farm the project out as a book. She's running into a lot of opposition...and this comes from LGBT friendly press. They think it is too cutting edge or something...basically, they are afraid it won't sell. Honestly, I don't know if it would or not, but it makes a great art series. I hope a lot of people are able to catch it around the nation as it tours. If not, she has a lot of the panels in a slideshow on her website.