@Viking & @Benten: I didn't put anywhere close to the amount of "work" into viewing the set as Viking did in just blogging about it! But it really deserved that kind of thought. I looked at 'Black Rock" when it was in Member Review and I really liked it and I started to write a comment on it, but I always get stung by the 512 character limit. Then work picked up and blah blah blah and the next time I looked, "Black Rock" -- you -- were on the front page!

I looked at Viking's blog and I was gobsmacked by the amount of work and time y'all put into preparing for the set. And then I thought about having to choose the costume and the makeup and the (it's definitely you!) hair. And there was the travel to the location. And the cold water. And the travel back from the location. I get exhausted just reading about it.

The effort you put into creating the set made me look at it again. And again. And again. (Purely for research purposes, of course.) And I started thinking about the reference drawings and how they reflected so many aspects of mythology and lore. And I looked at it again, and noticed the subtleties. Like the fingernail- and toenail-polish matching the hair, and how blue was really the only color, reflected everywhere. Like the net on Viking's bod hinting at some kind of capture and imprisonment and release. Like the way she stands outside the confinement of the iron bars in total freedom -- even from her clothes. Like the star on her pendant echoing the stars on her skin echoing the way she looks sadly at the sky -- Air, Earth & Water all represented.

I could go on and on. And I often do. I'm a former English teacher, and we English teacher types LOVE searching for metaphors and meanings and archetypes and allusions. We're special that way. And I realize you didn't put it all there-- that a lot of it just happened... Which is what art always does behind the artist's back. You make the art, and then give it to the world which makes the meanings. Public art, private meaning. Which leads to one of the most awesome aspects of art: the artist has no greater insight into the meanings of the art than any other viewer does.

After really taking in the set (with my upstairs head) and exploring some of the richness of thought and meaning it expressed, I realized that 99% of the comments you were going to get would be of the "I loved it!" or "Hot" variety. That's usually okay when a set is of the "girl slowly strips in a room" type. But you put so much more into this creation -- and your viewers will get so much more out of it -- that I knew if it were me, I'd be terribly disappointed if no one took it seriously enough to appreciate it in the fashion it deserved.

All this... scribbling and spewing... is just to say that the Thank-yous go to YOU two, for sharing your bodies and your minds with us.