JPG: I have always liked to work with girls. When I was a teenager, I was systematically attracted by girls who had style, the ones who fixed themselves up better than the others, and I'd go as far as advising them on what they should wear or not. Much later when I arrived in New York, I went on doing the same thing, this time with Toukie Smith, with whom I lived and whose close cropped Masai inspired hair style represented to me the the only alternative to those elaborate pompadour hair styles that were so popular with women of color in the late 60's. All this to say that Toukie was the perfect incarnation of African American femininity. Same thing with the shape of black women's bodies, whose long legs and generous backsides I chose to celebrate by exaggerating them. In 1973 I made a reduced version from a cast of Toukie that I judged not dramatic enough. Cutting up the twelve inch statue into pieces, I elongated its legs, arms, neck, and considerably exaggerated its posterior: but my Toukie doll was a flop. Toukie hated it.
Grace Jones, on the other hand, was very receptive to my ideas. I think thats what she liked about me…
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