He May Be a Pig, but at Least He’s a Babe

SANTA FE, N.M. —  After Julie Anderson became the latest in a long line of women Dana Childs had romanced and dumped, she told Childs she thought he was a pig.

Childs agreed.

With that out of the way, the pair launched an unusual collaboration. Childs turned model and muse for Anderson as she designed costumes and shot photographs for her new desk calendar, “Men Are Pigs (12 Months of Unadulterated Male Bashing).”

Anderson selected an aphorism for each month and photographed Childs in costumes and makeup.

For January (“Men Are From Another Planet”), she dressed him as an alien and posed him in front of some exotic rock formations near Santa Fe. The August portrait for “Men Won’t Ask Directions” depicts Childs as adventurer T.E. Lawrence, stoic amid sun-blasted sand dunes.

The calendar, packaged in a CD jewel box, features a cover portrait of Childs, naked but for a pig’s snout, pointed ears and curly tail. About 1,000 copies of the $15 calendar have been sold in bookstores and by mail order, encouraging Anderson to start on the 1998 edition.

“It’s struck a chord,” she says. “I have sold just as many to men as to women. I thought men would be insulted, but they’re not--they think it’s funny.”

Working on the calendar was a bittersweet experience for Anderson, 50. “The more pain I felt about the relationship, the more I needed this calendar,” she says. “When I woke up crying in the middle of the night I knew I could always hop into the darkroom.”

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Born in Hawaii, Anderson grew up in the San Fernando Valley. She majored in theater and studied photography at San Jose State. Later, in Los Angeles, she worked in industrial photography and as an artist’s representative.

She moved to St. Louis in 1981, and there concentrated on fine art photography. After relocating to Santa Fe in 1987 she opened the Costume Salon, where she specializes in making costumes from discarded odds and ends.

Along the way, Anderson was married and divorced twice, once to Stan Solomon, the artist she represented. He’s still her business partner and close friend. “I never throw anything away,” she says. “I’m a great recycler. So all my ex-boyfriends are friends--it’s not a big list.”

She met Childs, 37, a broadcaster from nearby Los Alamos, around Thanksgiving 1995. “It seemed like a real romantic thing for three months, and then I started saying I wanted more and he wanted less,” she says.

They called it quits at the end of January 1996. “He said, ‘I’m a pig. This is what we do to women,’ ” Anderson says. A lightbulb went on. She’d already made some photographs of Childs. Shifting focus, she began exploring variations on the “men are pigs” theme.

“Men Are Don Juanabees” features Childs in a crotch-grabbing Zorro pose. For “Men Are Big Weenies,” Childs stretched out in a king-size hot dog bun, garnished with mustard, relish and catsup.

Childs was a surprisingly willing participant.

“I’m a much better model than a boyfriend,” admits Childs, who now runs a small advertising agency. “I almost certainly used to be a king pig.

“I was just being selfish and thinking I was great--hurting girls and not caring,” he says.

Childs says he regretted the way things turned out with Anderson and was willing to portray a many-faceted jerk in the calendar, because “those are things I want to change in my life.”

As a father of a 2-year-old son from a brief marriage, he says he now sees his behavior in a new light. “I don’t want to pass along these bad habits to my son,” he says. “I want him to respect women and life.”

Anderson meanwhile is collecting suggestions for next year’s calendar. She says she hopes her work is received in the playful spirit in which it was intended. And she remains optimistic.

“If I really thought all men were pigs, I’d join a nunnery tomorrow.”