Exposed!

I should think a few people in the digital design industry choked on their cornflakes this morning...

I know the nude paintings will attract attention. In the age of the Internet it is inevitable that a lot of people will come to see them.

This is why I started this blog, so that everyone will understand why I became involved in this project.

The chaps at my industry's top weekly title New Media Age has been in on the secret for a very long time, and kindly agreed to cover the exhibition in the magazine to help me get the right messages out to those I work with and for.

I have a very special relationship with New Media Age. In 2005/6 I received a prestigious NMA Excellence Award, 'Greatest Individual Contribution to New Media'. This was for the work that I do to make businesses aware of the needs of disabled customers.

This blog is mentioned inside the back cover of today's issue, in a column called 'Gadfly' that is dedicated to industry gossip.

They have take the brave editorial decision to print my portrait in full. But then, this is art, it's not some seedy photograph.

Thank you to Michael Nutley and his team for helping me to get the right messages out there. The entire point of this project is to improve public understanding of MS, and this exposure will really help.

The piece reads: "...Fortune Cookie's very own Julie Howell is now the subject of not one but two nude portraits by artist Melissa Mailer-Yates. As she explains on her videoblog, Howell was persuaded to take the plunge by the MS Society. Sadly, Gadders won't be able to make the show's opening in Birmingham this week, but he salutes Howell's undoubted bravery."