Help Wanted: Smart Design

A pastel study of the view from my bedroom. The reference photo is featured in the side bar. I'm hunting for a good fall scene to paint that isn't about the beauty of fall colors--more about what Fall looks like to me. I am also looking for what it is that I find so fascinating about the woods? In this study--no shading, just colors, albeit heightened, the bare tree forms and dried grasses were of interest. I have always liked intersecting lines.

But enough about that. What about bathing suit shopping? Is it not the worst?


Standing in the center of the three way mirror in suit after suit, you wish you were on anti-depressants. Too many pistachio nuts and not enough spinning bulge out under arms, around the waist, top of the thighs. Under vampire lights that have sucked all
color, you look as bloated and pasty as the Pillsbury Dough Boy and wonder whatever happened to the girl that was? Where the fruck did she go?

And that's the best of situations. Complicate the mission by subtracting the breasts, the bulges women play up to the hilt, and you'd better throw a Xanax in your purse too. Hunting down a mastectomy swimsuit turns a bad shopping trip into a nightmare.


I took along my swim prostheses and fit them into suit after suit. For those of you who are fortunate and don't know about such things, there are pockets sewn into the bust section of the suit to hold the breast forms. In suit after suit, these pockets were shapeless allowing the breast form to flop freely down to places no breast form should go.

"Who the hell is designing these things?" I said to my saleswoman. "Some guy who thinks tits are located around the waist?" She shrugged.

If you've done any life drawing, you know that the nipples are located one head length down from the chin--not two head lengths--that's where the belly button goes. In a couple of agonizing hours, I learned smart design is sadly missing in this area of apparel for women who definitely need smart design to bolster spirits. After a couple of agonizing hours of trying on suits, I did find one that did hold the tits in place, would swim and didn't look too matronly. I walked out with it and an idea brewing.