Welcome to Perceive Me
Perceive Me started with a simple question: what happens when you invite other artists to see your body—really see it—and make art from that seeing?
For over a decade, I've been posing nude for artists, asking them to perceive me as I am. What began as one woman wanting to be seen—wanting to understand how I was perceived because I'd never been asked out on a date, because I blamed my fat body for being invisible—has transformed into something I didn't expect.
I learned that so much of my self-worth came from how I imagined others saw me. The project shifted from "perceive me, please" to discovering how I perceive myself. And I'm not doing it alone. This work created a community—a network of artists, friends, and people who actually see each other, who challenge beauty standards together, who help each other understand what's real versus what we've been told to believe about our bodies.
Now I'm 52, single, no kids. And I love my independence. I love my freedom. I'm learning that what other people think matters less than building confidence in my own perception of who I am.
What began as personal healing has grown into infrastructure for collective body liberation—a space where vulnerability becomes shared, where taking up space becomes permission for others to do the same. This project brings people together through the radical act of honest perception. It's about challenging the beauty industrial complex, yes, but it's also about joy, community, safety, and the transformative experience of being truly seen.
Every portrait, every collaboration, every person who participates becomes part of an ongoing practice built on actual connection rather than theory.
Perceive Me is a collaborative art project exploring body liberation through portraiture. The site includes nude figure artwork.
Where Perceive Me Started
For a long time, my artist statement began with five words: I hate pictures of myself.
I grew up hating to have my photograph taken. When I was 11 or 12, my grandma took my brother and me on a road trip to San Francisco and took photos every spare moment. In one, I deliberately have a bitchy face because I was getting frustrated. I didn't like the way I looked. I didn't want my ugly, large nose and double chin memorialized.
The concept for Perceive Me came from believing I was unattractive and unworthy because I am fat. Art, therapy and aging make you question all the baggage you bring forward. We value our self-worth based on how we imagine others perceive us. But how would I ever figure that out?
Taking Up Space
Walking through a gallery full of paintings, drawings, photographs, and sculptures of my naked body, I decided to photograph myself nude among the work. Not as the subject this time – as the person experiencing the work. As another body in the space.
There's something about matching poses with your own painted self. Standing beside a sculpture that started from your body. Existing in the same room as all these interpretations and saying, I'm still here.
Get Involved
Become a Collaborator
Work with me to create a representational figurative artwork of my plus-sized body.
(You don't have to live in LA - I can send photos)
Join the Drawing Cohort
Be part of the social practice component - the public nude portrait sessions at art fairs and exhibitions where community members pose for cohorts of artists.
