Is My Body Too Bluetylicious for You, Babe? Spencer Tunick's Sea Of Hull #seaofhull

I've been putting off writing this blog for three days: how on earth can I sum up this weekend in mere words? It feels as though I have travelled 1,000 miles and more.

In case you're wondering what I'm on about - in Hull, our home town, internationally renowned artist Spencer Tunick created an art installation like no other. On Saturday 9th July, 3500 people descended to pose nude in the city, painted in shades of blue, to represent the sea.

Spencer Tunick directing the models

I am not the sort of person who poses nude.

I am 42.
I am several stones overweight.
I am recovering from serious illness and major surgery
I am saggy, wrinkly, cellulite-y; I have the stretch marks of three pregnancies.
My body is nothing like the bodies you see in the media. It is wrecked.
My body is a temple to carb living.
I have absolutely zero desire to be a nudist.
I am normally a bit shy.

So, you may well ask, why did you decide to take part in such an event? I'll tell you why. It's been a pretty terrible 18 months - not just for me but also for my husband Dominic and for my brother, Mark. In the last 18 months we have experienced the following:

Dom and I were both made redundant from our teaching jobs after an acutely stressful hostile takeover. Dom had a breakdown. I suffered with anxiety and depression. I coincidentally ended up with acute kidney failure as a result of undiagnosed chronic kidney failure, and lost the use of one of my kidneys permanently. The good one got scarred. I've blogged about it before, but this means I wore a catheter for 6 months and now have to self catheterise up to 8 times a day. In addition to this, after 9 months of a treatment with a chemo drug for another illness, I had a radical hysterectomy. Mark split from his wife and, eventually got divorced, having come to live with us for a couple of months whilst he got himself together. Our Dad was diagnosed with dementia, and our Mum had a knee replacement; they both needed care. Our eldest son started university and left home. Our youngest daughter started school. Mark sold his home and moved house twice. We'd applied for several jobs and had been rejected over and over. Funds were running low. We had started our own business. We had no idea what was coming next...

It was one Saturday near Easter when Mark, Dom and I were surveying the damage and wondering how the very hell we were going to get things moving in the right direction again. That was when we heard that Spencer Tunick was planning his installation in our home city. What a challenge that would be. We could do that, right?! It'd be scary as hell, but we were going to have to put ourselves out of our comfort zones and say yes to the world, right? Right?!

That rhetoric seemed pretty weak when the alarm went at 2am on Saturday 9th July and I surveyed what was ahead. Was Hull ready for this jelly? Jelly flood, in my case, more like. It was unlikely *anyone* was ready for this body - and I was steadfastly failing to channel my inner Beyoncé. Plus I was going to have to see my brother naked for the first time since circa 1982. Awkward. The post Brexit fortnight had been depressing and I was not feeling cheery. Would I be cold? I packed a onesie, a hoodie, a blanket and two flasks of hot tea and reluctantly got in the car, with a cold, sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. Had I shaved my legs? Would my pubic topiary be sufficient? What if I got stuck next to a smelly person? What was worse - feet or bums?

3am, before we undressed

At Queen's Gardens in central Hull  amongst 3500 other nervous nudes-to-be, I was surprised by how normal everyone seemed. There was a diverse mix of ages - from 18 through to 80+. There seemed an equal split between men and women, and no-one looked particularly pervy. 

When Spencer Tunick gave us the order to strip off at 4.20am, a palpable nervous intake of breath took hold like a Mexican wave. I decided the only approach that made sense was to think "stuff it" and be my bravest self. I stripped off quickly and applied the blue paint hurriedly - modestly covering boobs first (which I realised with horror might look like I was touching myself up in public rather over-eagerly. Why did I not know the correct etiquette for this sort of thing?!)

We were B1 - fully committed Smurf.

Now, I'll be honest, when I imagined seeing other people naked, I imagined it in a full frontal capacity only. The reality is far more 3D. The first view I had was of several men, from behind, bending down to rub blue paint on their feet. Hairy arses, dangly bits, back drapes.... I'm going to stop here. Weirdly I felt slightly amused, in a benevolent sort of way, and not horrified - it actually put me at ease. I felt rather warmly towards these people who were evidently so vulnerable in front of me - flappy bits and all. After all, I had more than enough wobbly bits of my own. But there were plenty wth bodies like mine, and I adored them all for it.

The crowd blue-d up from their legs upwards.  The paint was applied like sunscreen, it was cold and we applied it to ourselves. It went everywhere - belly buttons, hair, inside your ears, the soles of your feet, under your boobs, in your creases, up your bum crack etc. There were some awkward giggles when everyone realised that they'd need help from someone to reach their backs. This was done in an efficient and as British a manner as possible, with everyone steadfastly refusing to think of the places those hands had been moments earlier.  What happens in Queen's Gardens stays in Queen's Gardens.

The beautiful Queen's Gardens at dawn

Collectively, we marched from Queen's Gardens towards the fountain rose garden, thousands of us in shades of blue, jade and turquoise, like Greek statues; kind of not human. Like extras in a Doctor Who shoot. We were the same; we were one. We were all of us vulnerable. Tattoos were covered, hair was covered, jewellery was off, shoes were off. Not one person had a body like those you see all the bloody time in the media. There were lumps and bumps, dangly bits, cellulite, hair, no hair, scars. There were people in wheelchairs and people on crutches. Everyone was imperfect - and so wonderfully, so magically perfect at the same time. For the first time in my life, I realised that it wasn't me who didn't fit in, it was everyone who didn't fit in. It lit a glow inside me that is still burning. It changed me, and I can't quite explain how.

The nakedness only felt strange for a few minutes. After that, the nervous chatter took over, and we were all gossiping, cracking jokes, giggling and taking the mickey out of each other. The atmosphere was electric. It felt like we were about to do something monumental. Like we could do anything.

Queen's Gardens surrounding the fountain

There were drones! Nobody warned me about that. Drones filming us from the sky! As we marched into the fountain for the first shoot, I noticed AN ENTIRE OPEN TOPPED BUS of photographers! This was not something I had considered before. I was terrified! I prayed to every God that I could think of that I wouldn't meet someone I knew. (I didn't.) I prayed that I wouldn't be recognisable in any photos published in the media (I believe I am not. I have not looked too closely and intend to keep it that way. It was enough that I participated - I do not wish to look at my own soft folds.)

There was magic in the air though. In the simple act of undressing, several layers of meaning settled upon me and my tribe.

Before I tell you what it was, let me tell you what it was not. It was not sexual. There were no random erections. It was about as sexy as taking your Mum to meet your work colleagues. Yes, I know this goes against lots of people's expectations and even some people's hopes (some people who commented negatively on the Facebook threads and newspaper stories have obviously thought about this subject very, very hard. Excuse the pun.) Sorry to disappoint, but it was not sexy at all.

These are the things it was:

Firstly, it made everyone the same. It became blindingly obvious really bloody quickly that we all collude to make social conventions. Once everyone had their clothes off, and we'd all got used to that, then it was hard to think of a need to have clothes, really, aside from the weather. With the blue paint covering tattoos, hair colour and all distinguishing marks, we all became one. You know what really stood out? People's eyes. I'm pretty sure that most of us didn't look at one another genitals at all once the novelty had worn off. They were just not as interesting as people's eyes or people's smiles.

Secondly, we were all vulnerable. We had all taken a huge risk to be there, naked. We were all outside of our comfort zones.  It was a great leveller. It didn't matter if you were rich or poor - nobody knew anyway, because you didn't have clothes or jewellery to convey your social status. It didn't matter if you were male or female - we all talked together - possibly more comfortably than when we had our clothes on. It didn't matter if you were young or old - it didn't matter if you were big or small in any sense of the word. We were all perfectly imperfect.

We were 3200 strong. There were enough of us to feel invincible, like an army. We had all overcome barriers of some sort to even be there, and it felt like we could achieve anything. We worked together to achieve something bigger than ourselves. We were beyond ourselves, above ourselves; a force of nature. It was a feeling that it's hard to come back from.

Over 3000 strong; when people become shapes

Thirdly, it was brilliantly fun and ever so slightly irreverent. It helped hugely that Spencer Tunick and his sidekick, Steve, didn't seem to get our Yorkshire humour. The crowd gently pulled them down a peg or two in a very British way. Whenever a shot was taking a long time to set up, the crowd started mooing "STEEEEVE." I believe it was in reference to Spencer himself, on top of the BBC building, who, sounding rather stressed, screamed into the microphone "WHERE'S Steve?!?!" Neither Spencer nor Steve understood the bellows of "STEEEEEVE" that marked the rest of the day. We did, though. It pleased us. It pleased us more that they were perplexed by it.

Despite the gentle piss taking, we all remained very British throughout. During one set, once lined up, we were told to bend at the waist and touch our toes. Pretty much every single person in the crowd turned around and apologised to the person behind them for what they were about to experience...

Spencer was not as adept at moving people around as one might expect. For example, he could not remember the names of some of the key buildings. Frustrated, he shouted "GUYS! Look  <flap hands> over THERE!" The crowd then obliged by shouting "GUILD HALL!" in unison whenever Spencer failed to remember the name of a landmark. Similarly, when he screamed at some man "DUDE! YOU HAVE SHOES ON! Go to the back" the entire crowd did a pantomime "BOOOOOO!" We all had no shoes on, why should this schmuck cheat the system?!

STEEEEVE

My three favourite comedy moments were these:

1) When, in exasperation at having to move us cattle, Spencer Tunick shouted "if you can find a hole, fill it!" This was not the right thing to say to 3200 naked good Yorkshire folk. "WAY HEY!" came the good natured cheer.

2) Spencer was having problems getting us to fill the huge Alfred Gelder street evenly (for this amazing picture). Spencer didn't want the rows that we seemed to naturally form in. We had walked forwards and backwards, and twisted from the waist with our arms out on several occasions trying to get it right. Then, we had come too far forwards. Hundreds of people had to walk backwards, and we all did literally walk backwards, in silence, awaiting further instructions. One sound rang loudly and coincidentally around the street - the "vehicle reversing" sound from one chap's electric wheelchair. It seemed brilliantly apt.

3) Our fourth picture location was on the Scale Lane swing bridge. As an aside, the bridge surface was SO SHARP. It was actually incredibly painful to walk on. (I found being barefoot more disconcerting than being naked. One man I spoke to mourned the loss of his watch. A source close to Spencer told me that he often finds people have socks as their comfort blanket and hate to take them off. Funny how its the little things that bother you in the end.) We had quite a walk from the city centre to the scale lane bridge, along cobbled streets. The city had been shut off to pedestrians, and incredibly well swept, so we hadn't had any spectators. When we approached the Scale Lane bridge at dawn we came across a balcony full of young people, still drinking and partying. They were somewhat surprised to see a Blue Army invasion and were recording it on their smart phones. En masse, the blue nudes erupted into a chant of "OFF! OFF! OFF!" To give them credit, the gentlemen of the party happily whipped off their tee shirts and twirled them above their heads like cowboys.

Our view this morning of the #seaofhull 😂 pic.twitter.com/htsuc3MJwn

— Sam (@samwisecooke) July 9, 2016

There is so much more I could tell you about the hijinks and fun - and the sense of compassion and belonging that all of us various shades of blue bodies felt. It's not too grand to say that it gave us a sense of what a community could be if we all pulled together with honesty and humour. That, in itself, was life changing. So here are some photos of us once we were back together and feeling elated.  

Dom, Mark and I attended the second day of the shoot too - 200 people in a secret location on the banks of the Humber. This was a much more intimate experience (quite literally in this picture, when I had a pair of feet near my left cheek and an old man's willy on my right - like a caterpillar taking a rest on a leaf.) These were the images that were taken. I got sunburned and I was frozen by the rain and winds on Humberside. None of that mattered. 

During the second shoot, Spencer Tunick mentioned that he believed we were taking part in the shoot so we'd receive a second print of his work. Whilst its a nice touch that we each get an official print, my reasons for being involved in the Sea of Hull could not be further from the truth. I participated to challenge myself to something I felt was almost unthinkable. I knew it was a bucket list task as soon as I heard about the installation. I participated to experience being part of thousands of people who were also pushing themselves outside of their comfort zone. I did it to be a part of something bigger than me. I did it to belong. It was the nudes that wielded the power, during those early hours of Saturday 9th July. It felt like we could take on the world.

Whilst I don't think a future life of naturism is ahead of me,  I'll never again worry about wearing a sleeveless blouse, or beat myself up because I don't look like all the models I ever see. I am determined to keep doing the things that scare me. As soon as I shrink away from something, it will go on my bucket list.

I am stronger than I thought.
My soul will always be blue.