Bonnie Levison - Spencer No-Tunick

 

 

I'm tall, and I grew to my full height of almost 6ft at the age of 12. [cheers] [chuckles] I was in seventh grade. It was a terrible year. I had a lot of nicknames. I think Giant was probably the most popular, but the boys loved to call me Amazon. Yeah. I don't really blame them, because they hadn't grown yet and I towered over them, which made school dances a lot of fun. I think the tallest boy came up to my shoulders. God forbid there was a slow dance. I looked like I was breastfeeding. It was awful. [audience laughter]

 

Oh. And then, there were the questions. “How's the weather up there? What do you eat to get so big?” Of course, the most popular. “You're so tall, you must play basketball.” As luck would have it, I was terrible at basketball. But I was forced to be on my seventh-grade team. Because I was so bad, I didn't play in many of the games. But I did have one very important job. That was a couple of minutes before every game, my coach would cue me, and I would have to stand up and walk slowly around the gym to, I quote, “Frighten the other team.” [audience laughter]

 

[I hated feeling so big. I just wanted to be smaller. I did whatever I could. Gosh, I dieted, I hunched, I wore flats. Nothing helped. The only thing that helped was time. Eventually, the boys got taller, they started making clothes an extralong, and I got on with my life. I went to college, I got a job, I married, I had a family and the decades flew by, but I never quite got over feeling so big and just uncomfortable in my own skin. 

 

So, now I'm in my late 50s. I'm on Nantucket Island. Nantucket is a really special place for me. It's where my grandparents had a house, and I would spend every summer there. I had all my first there. I learned to ride a bike and swim. I had my first job. I had my first kiss. It was a place where I feel safe. 

 

And now, I'm there and I'm working at a conference. They have all these amazing speakers. They have celebrities, and actors and writers. But the people who are inspiring me are the people you've never heard of. They're people who have faced incredible tragedy and loss, and they're there speaking about it and I am feeling so inspired by them. All I can think is, “Oh, my gosh, these people have been through so much, and they're getting on with their lives. I still can't get over how I felt like when I was 12.” 

 

And then, they introduced the next speaker. Please welcome to the stage Spencer Tunick. I'm really excited. Spencer Tunick is a photographer whose work I had admired for years. He takes these incredible, enormous photos out in nature or in public spaces. These photographs, they just draw you in. And as you get closer to them, you realize they're filled with people who are all naked which is why I refer to him as Spencer “No” Tunick. [audience laughter]

 

But I look at these photographs, and I see these people who are naked and I think to myself, “Oh, my God, I can't believe these people do this.” And so, he speaks about his process. It's really interesting. And then, he says, “I'm going to take one of my photographs tomorrow morning. If somebody would like to be in it, we're meeting at 05:30 in the morning.” I don't know what comes over me, but I'm in my safe place. I'm feeling inspired, but I'm doing this. 

 

So, I go back and I set my alarm for 05:00 AM. I stagger out of bed. I throw on a bathrobe, some flipflops, not much else and I make my way to the meeting place. It is pitch blackout. There's, I don't know, 50, 60 people awkwardly hovering around a coffee machine. There's this low dim of conversation and weird laughter. They're all dressed in bathrobes and slippers, just like me. 

 

Honestly, it looked like they were either waiting for a spa treatment or an orgy. I was very uncomfortable, and I just wanted to run. But then, Spencer's assistant comes up and says, “Okay, everybody, we want you to walk down about a block to the end of the road, and there is the beach overlooking the harbor and we'll meet Spencer there.” Just like lemmings, everybody turns and starts walking. And so, do I. With every step, I begin to hear those nicknames and I start feeling like that 12-year-old girl. But I keep walking. 

 

We arrive at the beach, and there's Spencer up on this huge stepladder. He's got all his photography equipment with him and he starts to describe what he wants us to do. So, he wants us all to go down to the beach, and stand in rows looking out to the water and then he'll take the picture from behind us. And then, very unceremoniously, he says, “Now, take off all your clothes.” 

 

I expected a little more small talk, a get to know you, something like that. But everyone just turns, and they go off, and they find their own little dune and they start taking off their clothes. So, so do I. I find my dune. As I'm taking off my robe, I'm thinking, “Bonnie, what are you doing? Nobody wants to see your oversized, too old body with, forgive me, what's left of your pubic hair. Nobody wants to see it. What are you doing?” But I keep going.

 

As I take off my robe, and I'm standing there in this morning air and I feel the cool breeze blowing over my body and suddenly, I'm walking with this crowd of totally naked people. [audience laughter] I keep my eyes up,- [audience laughter] -but my peripheral vision is working very well- [audience laughter] -and I notice that it's all ages, it's all sizes, it's all hues. And we're pretty beautiful. As I get to the beach, I decide I don't want to be in the back row and I don't want to be in the front row, so I put myself in the middle on the end. He has us all in these rows, and then he says, “I'd like you all to pick up some seaweed and hold it up in your right hand, just like the Statue of Liberty.” And so, we're holding this seaweed and we're standing there. The sun is rising over the harbor and the sky is filled with pinks and blues and purples. It's beautiful and quiet. And suddenly, the silence is broken. There's this sound off to the right, “Honk, honk.” Oh, my God. It's the morning ferry. [audience laughter]  And it’s making its way around the bend. [audience laughter] By the time they're in front of us, everybody on the ferry is out on the deck looking at us. [audience laughter]

 

And we're looking at them. I don't know who is more shocked, but all I hear is from behind us, Spencer says, “Don't move. Click, click, click, click, click, click.” We are laughing hysterically. [audience laughter] I am laughing so hard, I totally forget I'm naked. I walked off the beach that day, and I felt a lightness I had never felt before. Three months later, it's December. It's cold and gray. I pick up my mail, and I have this. There's this big manila envelope, and it says “Spencer Tunick photography.” It's my print of the picture. I'm so excited. I rip the manila envelope open, I pull out the picture and I'm holding it. It's beautiful. It's really beautiful. But I have to look for myself, of course. I remember I was standing in the middle row off to the right, and I'm looking and I am looking and “Oh, my God, he cropped the photo, and I'm not in it. [audience laughter] I went through all that, and I wasn't in that photo? I couldn't believe it. And then, I thought about it. I didn't need to be in the photo. I was there. I did it, and I loved it. That day, I stood tall, and I would do it again. Thank you.