Philip Class
The first thing they did was take me to one of the studios, where they took all my clothes off, painted my body completely red and gave me a piece of gauze to put over my waist. It was almost nothing to wear, but I wrapped it around my body the best I could.
That was my introduction to Paris.
On my way home from Paris, I stopped in London for a few days. While I was there, a new play by, a then little known, Irish playwright, was being presented at the london theater club, it was Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for godot”
I initially took the events of my first evening in Paris as an omen, but now i see it as something more definite. In fact, a marker. A line of demarcation i had crossed. In retrospect, i think those people dressed in costumes, walking up Montparnasse, must have seen something before anybody else did, when they looked at me and said “this guy comes with us” I think it wasn’t just an accident, it was as clear a sign as i would ever get…
That I was going to enter the life of the artist.
I was going to disrobe myself.
I was going to put on a new identity.
I was going to be,
somebody else.