Flower girl, after Vela, 1882
18 x 27" In his sculpture, Vela shows us a young woman, possibly not eighteen, maybe twenty, who hasn't yet grown into her figure (hips, breasts, nose) and won't until about 25 years old, of a time more innocent than ours, when a twenty year old might still play dress up in front of a mirror - but for Vela the mirror is us. I've made us not the mirror but an observer whom she certainly knows is watching, and she's enough of an exhibitionist to enjoy preening, knowing she's being seen. She's coming into beauty and she knows it and enjoys showing it off. At the time, this was all seen as innocence, not meaning we should be thinking about sex but we should be admiring her form, the stage of development she's reached, and imagining the woman she's yet to become. Prurience would have been seen to be the path taken by low, weak minds.