I am a 33 year old artist, I primarily work in watercolor. I meet a man, he gives me a very graphic color polaroid picture of a woman's open vulva. He tells me its his wife, when she was twenty years old. He wants a 10X14 watercolor, a fair rendition but make it "artistic". My first commission.

Well, I did not know where to start, I stared and stared at the somewhat yellowed picture trying to separate myself of the reality, but it was just too graphic, to real. This woman offered her vagina to the photographer, her husband. I kept asking myself, could I do that? And with the help of a large hand mirror under me, a full length floor mirror, naked I first drew myself, as detailed as I could. After my drawing was done I colored it, adding shadows and lines, dark and light, painted from memory or sitting again to get the colors right, the shimmer of woman's sweat, the unquestioned swelling as the longer I took the more engorged I became, changing colors from a bright pink red to a darker red turning to purple. I was engrossed in my very own sexual offering and that is what I based my painting on.

I charged my client for my first commission a whole $250.00 which he paid, of my vulva opened not by my fingers but solely my arousal. Yes, I gave it a bit of artistic flare, but unmistakenly is a woman's arousal. He held it, never referring back to the old polaroid, he framed it professionally and gave it to his wife for their fortieth anniversary. She loved it and it hangs in her bedroom. He has given me lots of support and referrals, not for anything so intimate, but for my body of work. His painting hangs in a bedroom, but I imagine seen by many. It tickles inside to know that my very intimate self is on display.