I discovered this Goddess du Jour, Taryn Andreatta, while searching around for beautiful, inspiring, erotic images. Taryn Andreatta is a modern-day model, and I’m well aware of that fact. But, when I look at her, I can’t imagine she exists in reality. There is something more to her beauty than meets the eye. She has a timeless beauty, evocative of Renaissance paintings, Pre-Raphaelite romanticism, and oxidized daguerreotype mysteries.

The Offering was artfully shot by photographers Mark Sink and Kristin Hatgi.

Fair as the moon and joyful as the light … (Christina Rossetti)

She is a Gauguin goddess of flowers and island nature

A Pre-Raphaelite beauty of ethereal radiance

I could imagine Amadeo Modigliani falling in love with her and painting her raw sensuality

The Lover “La Amante” by director Stephan J. Bell

Happy July the 5th… I am creating some new articles for a few publications and for both blogs (Erotica du Jour and The Sensual Foodie) Plus, there have been so many things going on in my private life. My son is in baseball camp as well as ‘all stars’ league, so lots of baseball mom action: making sure he has enough water, food and rest, basically. And doing laundry. Constantly laundry. Then, my two younger girls are, well, young girls. They wake up early and refuse to go to bed (so I can write). But, I have perfected the art of banana pancakes recently, which is no small feat. Yes, I have finally mastered the ‘fluffy pancake secret’. Add bananas to that, and you have very fluffy, delicious banana pancakes. And, I have attempted to go to bed early(er) and get up early(er) although I do hit the snooze button quite often. Despite my snooze button fetish, I have promised myself that I would get into great shape this summer. Yet, waking up early for a walk/run on the beach has happened once this past week. I had hoped to do it every day, but when I don’t get to bed early enough, well, I do need my beauty rest. I weigh out the positives while I hit the snooze button. More sleep (beauty), or more exercise (fitness)? Or, more articles to post (intellectualism)? So, I hope to catch up with creating fresh and interesting articles for my love child Erotica du Jour. In an effort to make this a dynamic and sexy blog, I decided to create two new categories for your pleasure:

• Exciting News (updating you on Erotica du Jour’s ‘behind the pages’ happenings in between article posts)
• Goddess du Jour (a new “goddess” will be posted every Wednesday)

Kisses, Butterfly

If you love food, and lust over women like Nigella Lawson in the kitchen, then check out my new foodie blog, The Sensual Foodie… just click on the picture of me above covered in body sushi a la Nyotaimori, the Japanese erotic food art 女体盛り

I received these two photographs from a former lover. It was a gift, in my mailbox. I had taken these with a camera on a set timer, before the days of digital. These two were taken in a series I did of myself, on my antique chaise lounge. {I lost the originals in New Orleans, along with my chaise lounge} My body, approximately fifteen years ago, before three children, before gravity. I was amazed to see how little I have changed over the years, despite pregnancies and time. These black & white photos are unaltered, printed on photo paper, before the days of Photoshop. I feel like they depict me beautifully, circa 1996.

In these photos, I was attempting to emulate the “Sleeping Venus” of Titan’s reclining nude, “Venus of Urbino” and the Odalisques of art history’s past, such as Manet’s “Olympia” and other sensual nudes in paintings.

I borrowed this information about the term “Sleeping Venus“:

The first female reclining nude in European painting is Giorgione’s The Sleeping Venus, painted in 1510. It pictures a reclining nude as the principal and only subject of the picture. In creating this work, Giorgione was reviving a tradition of the female nude that can be traced back to ancient Greek art.

In fact, Giorgione’s Sleeping Venus started what became one of the great themes of European art: the nude in an idealized landscape setting. Not painted for sexual desire, the nude is depicted as a demure goddess sleeping and unaware that a viewer is peeking in on her.

The Venus of Urbino by Titan from Wikipedia described: The Venus of Urbino is a 1538 oil painting by the Italian master Titian. It depicts a nude young woman, identified with the goddess Venus, reclining on a couch or bed in the sumptuous surroundings of a Renaissance palace. It hangs in the Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence. The figure’s pose is based on Giorgione‘s Sleeping Venus (c. 1510), which Titian completed.