M
att Huntley explains to his model,
Gretchen Leigh, how best to get the
pasties to stick to her nipples.
“I try to be very clinical when I’m talking to
models, but this is going to sound like what it is: I
need you to get them erect.”
Matt and his assistant, Terra McGill, set up their
workstation of paints on a folding card table in the
basement studio of Purely Yours Photography in
Gresham.
Gretchen is lazily snapchatting and texting on the
couch waiting.
When Matt’s ready and all of her pasties are in the
right place, she takes off her top and Matt begins
painting in white the base of the designs on her
bare body.
It takes only about thirty minutes of white
outlines and broad strokes of black and red before
the novelty of blush-worthy semi-nudity wears off
and you realize what you’re actually watching for
the next five hours: paint drying.
Matt works around Gretchen’s body again and
again, creating layers as Terra fills in areas with
black. Matt has a vision for the final work in his
mind, but on this particular job that’s something
only Matt can see.
This isn’t his first rodeo. He’s been an artist of one
kind or another for basically the entirety of his life.
Whether it was watercolors, metal work, sculpting,
woodworking, special effects make-up, if it could
have been interpreted as art over the last 2,000
years; he’s probably done it.
As he outlines and fills in shoulder, breast, and
back with black; he explains that this is art to him.
You just don’t see the girl. Matt has competed at
bodypainting competitions, taking second place in
Canada recently. He will be attending competitions
in San Francisco and Atlanta this year, but
begrudgingly can’t make it to Austria for the World
Bodypainting Festival.
Gretchen and Matt talk nonchalantly about
Gretchen’s current events. You’d think that the
reality of his being inches from her bare thighs
would at least give a hiccup in the conversation,
but for them this is not their first time working
together and there’s nothing sexual about it for
either of them.
Gretchen goes on about a boy she might be seeing,
her lifting exercises, and her pride in hip-thrusting
365 lbs. and explains that’s where the little bruises
on her hips came from.
At 22 years old, Gretchen is a Jane of all trades. A
barista and social media manager by day, she is a
bit of a gym rat, can harmonize on short notice, but
11