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Show 220 Six f l i g h t s is a good climb and we went in breathing hard, f i l l i n g the place up what with his kitchen, bedroom, eating and l i v i ng quarters all there too, and this paint-smeared table against one wall with the painting of Kate resting on i t and leaning back against the w a l l , going up to the ceiling, a big painting which h i t us a l l with i t s size (Miles had stood on a chair to paint the upper part and had gone to his knees to paint the bottom, kneeling at her feet), Kate painted l i f e - s i z e and from that table towering over us so that all of us, John Tobin with his hat in his hand, seemed humble admirers. She stands straight forward, feet planted s o l i d l y , but there's a slight turn to her body beginning at the waist, her shoulders are turned more, and her face is turned toward her l e f t shoulder. Her arms are raised, her hands behind her neck to clasp the chain of a broach. Her black hair s p i l l s over her wrists and forearms, curling as i f after a bath. She's naked. It is not a portrait and Kate's face is not recognizable in i t . The features are not detailed, the skin is g i r l i s h l y smooth, yet there is something womanly severe in the expression. The background is.h*? room, wallpaper blown with red roses, she stands on a flowered rug, though neither rug nor wallpaper are rendered r e a l i s t i c a l l y , the flowers' shapes and spacing distorted, the colors deliberately uneven, suggesting simultaneously the vulgar taste of such rooms and a strange l i f e in the flowers, as i f they are alive. They suggest a garden, as i f the g i r l , or woman, stands both in a garden of roses and in a cheap bedroom. I think we were a l l startled by her nakedness. Her pelvis has a slight thrust forward so that her mons Veneris is prominent, and her raised arms raise her breasts to erotic attention, yet somehow the womanly size of the thighs and belly subdues the mons, and there is something poignant in her breasts, s t i l l more g i r l i s h than womanly, so that all that larger-than-life |