Maiden Voyages: October-November 2016

Posted on November 13, 2016 by Ron

Welcome readers to a belated Maiden Voyages. Within two weeks of my fruitful research trip, Mother Nature unleashed her chaos and I had a freak accident at home which sent me to the hospital. As traumas go, it was a minor one but recovery is gradual. My injuries have made it difficult to sit for a long time which is why there have been no posts from me in a while. To make matters worse, my private business has been busier than ever. Many days I have intended to work on a post or reply to emails to find myself too exhausted mentally and physically. This has taken an emotional toll as I deal with bureaucracy of the broken American medical system. I thank my friends and readers for their well wishes and promise to continue as I am able. My research trip has been an inspiration and I have many interesting things to share. However, producing a post to my standards does take time and cannot be done in one sitting. I still believe Pigtails in Paint has an important function and should continue to do so. I also encourage those interested in composing posts for this site to please do so.

Mission Statement: One of the ideas that came from my trip was the urgent need for a mission statement. It goes without saying that Pigtails covers a number of controversial subjects associated with little girls. However, like the proverbial elephant in the living room, it is an important subject that the conventions of society would have us ignore, trivialize or offer patent simplistic answers to. Once posted, the ‘Mission Statement’ will reflect what I have learned to date about the valuable function this site serves, whether people want to acknowledge it or not.

Lessons from Behind the Iron Curtain: A Jock Sturges show titled ‘Absence of Shame’ was recently closed in Moscow after protests and charges that the work was child pornography. The government investigated and concurred with the complainants and ordered it shut down. Given the U.S. President-Elect’s admiration for Russian methods for controlling its people, one has to wonder how much the United States will be following suit in the years to come. Our readers should be reminded that Pigtails has been blocked in that country since 2014 and can only be accessed through proxy servers.

A Fresh New Site: I was informed of an interesting new site covering young girl portraiture. The blogger states that: “The intention is to help redress, in admittedly a very limited way, the imbalance that exists with regard to images of girls online.” It seems that image sites such as Tumblr delete any blogs that seem to be concentrating on young girls though specific policies regarding young girls are not clearly spelled out in the respective ToS (Terms of Service). Girls’ Portraiture intends to offer proper context to images rather than the popular convention of presenting a mash of random and unidentified images.

New Sia Video: Here is another one featuring Maddie Ziegler (plus a bunch of other kids). There are also a couple other older videos of hers that may have been overlooked. One called Big Girls Cry has Maddie in it and another called Alive has a cute little Asian girl doing martial arts. It seems that the theme of children and little girls is a long-standing one for Sia. In Alive, the little girl does a series of forms (kata in Japanese) which happen to be very advanced—done only by brown and black belts, an impressive accomplishment for a girl that age.

Vintage Postcards: An excellent collection of vintage postcards featuring girls and children has been brought to my attention. Take a look here.

Site Design: Thanks to the efforts of supporters, there will be a noticeable change in the appearance of this blog. It was my intent to have these changes take effect this month when our domain name was renewed. However, unavoidable delays on all fronts means that these changes are likely to be implemented in the new year. There will be a new banner designed by one of our artists and the layout style and site functions will be updated to make the site more professional.

The Kiss of Death: It has been brought to my attention that one of the films reviewed on this site, The Spy Who Caught a Cold, was deleted from YouTube. It has become clear to me that because of the large readership of Pigtails, we have become a source of intelligence for the “decency police”. Therefore, readers should know that any relevant video materials appearing on YouTube are copied in the course of doing the relevant posts. If any reader would like an MP4 copy of such a film that can be viewed on a computer, it can be made available for download (assuming the video is unavailable elsewhere).

The Girls of Summer, Pt. 3

Posted on September 17, 2015 by Pip Starr

Alas, summer is drawing to close here in the Northern Hemisphere, but we have time to get one more of these in before it officially ends next Tuesday, September 22nd. Let’s begin.

We’ll start with a video clip. This is the opening scene from the German film The Baader Meinhof Complex, directed by Uli Edel. I won’t say much about the film itself, other than that it is based on a real political group that was active in Germany during the late ’60s and the ’70s. You really should watch it. The opening scene features the twin daughters of the Ulrike Meinhof character frolicking on a nude beach.

[KGVID width=”426″ height=”240″]/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Baader-Meinhof-Complex.mp4[/KGVID]

The Baader Meinhof Complex (official site)

Our next piece is from a photographer by the name of Elliston Lutz. I couldn’t tease out much information about him from the internet, but I know he generally shoots (mostly adult) fashion photography. This piece probably comes from a fashion shoot, but I couldn’t tell you which one. In addition to this lovely photo, there’s a short video Lutz shot a few years ago for Guess Kids featuring child singer Jackie Evancho along with some other children. You can watch that here if you’re interested.

Elliston Lutz – (Title Unknown)

This next artist is one of my absolute faves, and I’ve featured his work here before, in the Bare Beach Babies series. Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida (usually shortened to just Joaquín Sorolla) was a Spanish painter who specialized in Impressionistic beach scenes, mostly featuring children. This one is aptly titled Summer.

Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida – Summer (1904)

Wikipedia: Joaquín Sorolla

Well, what would this series be if I didn’t post at least one image by Jock Sturges? You’ve probably seen this one before—it is one of Sturges’ most iconic images, as it features his favorite model Misty Dawn.

Jock Sturges – Misty Dawn

Wikipedia: Jock Sturges

Here’s another artist that’s appeared on the blog before, Russian painter Tatiana Deriy. This piece references the fact that Greek goddess of beauty Aphrodite (and her Roman equivalent Venus) was supposedly born out of the sea. That’s one of the creation myths surrounding her anyway. There are actually several, but this is the one artists tend to gravitate to in depicting her birth.

Tatiana Deriy – The Young Aphrodite (2004)

ArtRussia: Tatyana Deriy

Here’s a photo by noted photographer George S. Zimbel. The title, Space Babies, seems like an odd choice for a photo of children lying on the beach, but it was taken in 1959, the height of the Space Age, which kicked off in 1957 with the launch of the satellite Sputnik. And these girls, dressed in their sunglasses and sleek swimsuits, were thoroughly modern kiddos of their time.

George S. Zimbel – Space Babies, Jones Beach, New York, 1959

George S. Zimbel (official site)

There weren’t really any closeup shots in the other two Girls of Summer posts, so I decided to remedy that by including this photo by Jorge Pérez Carsí, a Spanish photographer from Valencia. Its title translates to The Summer Holiday of Angela.

Jorge Pérez Carsí – El veraneo de Angela

Although it’s in black & white, this is actually a painting. Carl Hans Schrader-Velgen actually painted many of these nudes in nature scenes, though usually he focused on adult women. It’s unusual to see scenes of boys and girls bathing nude together, though they became more frequent as the twentieth century progressed.

Carl Hans Schrader-Velgen – Heisser Tag (1913)

I actually included a photo by this next photographer in the last Girls of Summer post. This little girl looks like she would love to jump into that nice cool water, doesn’t she?

This image appeared on this artist’s Flickr account here.

Jonas Elmqvist – Summer by the Sea

Our next artist, who goes by the online moniker Pretty, is a Russian photographer who utilizes some special effects in her work. There’s something that calls to mind mythological or fantasy art in this piece.

Pretty – The Girl and the Sea

Our next artist is painter Ariana Richards. If that name sounds familiar, it should. Richards is best known as an actress who appeared most notably as a child in the films Jurassic Park (as Lex Murphy) and Tremors (as Mindy Sterngood). She still acts occasionally, but these days she mostly devotes herself to painting, at which she is quite talented, even winning awards for her work. As an adolescent she occasionally did some modeling too, even appearing in a Japanese magazine.

Ariana Richards – Hannah & Dylan

Gallery Ariana (official site)

Wikipedia: Ariana Richards

David Hurn is an English documentary and celebrity photographer of Welsh descent. Miners’ Week (a.k.a. Miners’ Fortnight) was an event in which miners and their families would descend on the peninsula of Barry Island off the coast of South Wales during a certain time every summer, packing the beaches. You can see more photos and read a bit about it here.

David Hurn – Miners’ Week at Barry Island

Wikipedia: David Hurn

Sven L. is a photographer who is fairly well represented on the web, so it’s odd that he never includes his last name. I suppose it’s a privacy issue, but whatever the case, he has lots of lovely photos of children—girls mostly—and will certainly be featured here again. I’m including two of his photos here. I particularly like the first photo, in which the girl is wearing a filmy translucent shift or slip (and apparently nothing beneath). I would love to see more images of the girl in this costume—it very much reminds me of the fairies and maidens that appeared in artwork of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.

Sven Leisering is a German photographer and many of his images are of his own daughters.

Sven L. – Beach (2011)

Sven L. – Panorama (2011)

Flickr: Sven L.

The girl who appears in this next painting is a little older than what we ordinarily would post here, but I quite like this painting and just had to share it. It is by French Symbolist and Orientalist painter Armand Point. I particularly adore the girl’s hair.

Armand Point – The Bather

Wikipedia: Armand Point

Here is a photo by Russian photographer (of course) Yanina Arkhangelskaya. I could not trace this one back to its source unfortunately, and there seems to be nothing else about the artist online.

Information on this artist is indeed sparse but a few images can be found here.

Yanina Arkhangelskaya – (Title Unknown)

Another Russian photographer, Vadim Petrakov, was a bit easier to find. He has done quite a lot of work for the stock photography site Shutterstock. Of course, this image did not come from there. I also have another photo of these siblings by the same photographer, but I liked this one better.

This photo appears on PhotoSight here and his user account is here. He also has a Photoline account.

Vadim Petrakov – Brother and Sister

Annie Cassez is a French painter and illustrator. I actually think she’s a better still life painter than a portraitist, but I do like this piece.

Annie Cassez – La Chilienne (2010)

Annie Cassez (official site)

Laimis is probably another photographer I discovered on a Russian photography site, but who knows for sure? I could find nothing else about this artist online. What I like about this photo is the children’s well-defined musculature. These are kids in their prime for sure.

This image appears on a controversial Russian website called Imagesource. The rhetoric has it that it is really a pornographic website pretending be another Flickr. Be that as it may, Laimis simply shoots in the style of street photography and has an interest in subjects (mostly boys) he finds on the beach. This user has 30 albums with this account.

Laimis – (Title Unknown)

Here’s the final piece, and yep, it’s by another Russian photographer. Her name is Oksana Tseatsura, though she occasionally goes by Sana. This photo is titled, appropriately enough, The Last Summer Day. And that’s it for our Girls of Summer! Well, for this year anyway . . .

Oksana Tseatsura – The Last Summer Day

Photographers.com: Oksana Tseatsura

Ride with Jock Sturges

Posted on March 25, 2012 by Pip Starr

Although short-lived as a band, Ride was around long enough to put out a couple of phenomenal albums (Nowhere and Going Blank Again) and a couple of mediocre ones (Carnival of Light and Tarantula) before they broke up in 1996. Three of the singles from the second album–well, technically two singles and a Japan-only compilation of both of the other singles–featured photos by Jock Sturges. I’ve posted a small sample of Sturges’s work here before, and he’s already so well known that I see little reason to post too many of his photos, but these fit this month’s theme, so up they go.

Jock Sturges – Ride – Leave Them All Behind (cover) (1)

Jock Sturges – Ride – Leave Them All Behind (cover) (2)

Jock Sturges – Ride – Twisterella (cover)

Jock Sturges – Ride – Grasshopper (cover) (1)

Jock Sturges – Ride – Grasshopper (cover) (2)

Wikipedia: Jock Sturges

Ride (Official Site)

Wikipedia: Ride (band)

Bare Beach Babies Pt. 3: The Modern Age

Posted on March 19, 2011 by Pip Starr

The last of our Bare Beach Babies three-parter. We can’t really have a proper discussion of this without including Jock Sturges, and so we’ll begin with him. Now, there are simply too many images by Sturges that fit this description to include them all here, so I’ll provide a few examples. Sturges’s modus operandi is to focus his camera on nudist and naturist girls starting when they are very young and following the blossoming of their bodies from prepubescence, through adolescence, and finally to the young women they become. His photographs, taken with a large-format camera, have been controversial from the get-go, capturing the changing female body in plain but elegant terms. That anyone would equate Sturges’s work with pornography seems to speak more about the minds of his critics than it does about his photographs. Like the girls themselves, these images are holistic and stripped bare–stripped of pretentions, semiotic cues, and the language of modern sexuality. Unless one equates nudity with sexuality across the board (an odd notion to be sure, because it would mean that any image of a naked child is de facto pornography) if there is any eroticism to be found in these pictures, the fault lies clearly with the viewer rather than the pictures themselves. Perhaps in the end the real “problem” then is that these pictures force us to confront an uncomfortably reality about ourselves.