JESS INTERVIEWS ANDY IN THE WOODS
Jess Woolridge, a young artist working in South Wales interviewed Andy to create content for the Amuse Me Press arts magazine for Cardiff, 'cARTiff'.
This is her article:
In early May of this year, Cardiff caught it’s first glimpse of summer with a spell of clear blue skies and high temperatures. It was the day of the interview with Andrew Lamb – or as he’s more fondly known; Andy – and the warmth of the mid-morning sun shined with the promise of a pleasant day. Meeting Andy, an agreement was made on the location of Castell Coch for filming our discussion. As we approached the castle and decided on a spot amongst the woods, internally I acknowledged my slight nervousness on the commencement of an interview shared with a naked man in the woods – I’d become all too aware of my usual past encounters with awkwardness from past experiences.
As Andy proceeded to remove his clothes, looking away I wondered where my concerns had stemmed from. I had no issue with the naked form during past life drawing sessions, so why would I fret over a nude interviewee? I suppose then what it stemmed down to was the normality of nakedness being associated with as inherently sexual. The difference in life drawing is the act of observing as a means of studying the form. There’s little communication, therefore you feel removed from the nude life model. Conversations require more directness and an involvement between the interviewer and interviewee, in addition to physically sharing a close space.
As my nerves swiftly evaporated and the conversation flowed, soon enough so had my perceptions of the nude. Interestingly though, a topic we discussed was the acceptability of the nude amongst the public; the probability of a person being offended by nudity and the reasons behind this with the associations of the nude. Certainly there also appears to be sexualisation placed upon certain attributes on women particularly – why is this? Some cultures are more accepting of the nude in public spaces also – why?
I won’t give too much else away, – you’ll need to view the video online for that – though what I can say is of how eye opening our discussion was on the politics of being nude. It even had me wondering about the possibility of life modeling myself in the years to come.