The Language of Bodies
by Freida Theant

SMOKE SIGNALS MAGAZINE - July - August 2012

Renée’s arm, pale as her satin sheets, extended past her mattress with her fingers relaxed in a lazy crescent, cradling her just-lit cigarette, which spends its down-time spindling ghostly risers from the edge of its ember. Renée feels serene, seeing her lover resting at peace. Only a few months ago they were strangers: she, a Columbia professor of Sociology and marginalized wife of a commodities broker; and Monica, a Master’s candidate at City College, part-timing as a bookstore clerk.

Smoking Virtuoso
by Freida Theant

SMOKE SIGNALS MAGAZINE - March - April 2014

When the famed violinist Dalila lights up, she turns the heads of concert-goers who flee outdoors during intermissions at Severance Hall, Cleveland. They are agog at how she enjoys a smoky duet with her Dunhill Black. One observer remarks “she deserves the title ‘smoking virtuoso’ bringing her gold Yves St Laurent lighter up to her cigarette to bestow it with life, and thus entwine with her in a glowing, smoky creation, flowing together”.

Release: Part 4

By Freida Theant

SMOKE SIGNALS MAGAZINE - May - June 2011

“Oh yes, considerably,” she replied, her anger growing, so that when she took a violent pull on her cigarette, her eyes blazed nearly as fiercely as the blazing tip. “There are lands and financial benefits, to say nothing of the political alliances and connections to the Tories that would fall into his grasp. This would greatly ease the way for his gaining a seat in the House of Lords.”

Kissing My Friend
by Freida Theant

SMOKE SIGNALS MAGAZINE - September - October 2011

The public knows me as a prize-winning artist, invited to interviews for magazines and talk shows, but that’s far from how I started out.

But first, understand this: women enchant me when they light their cigarettes, when they expel their chalky, membrane-thin sheets from moist, barely spaced lips, and when they concave their cheeks and make taut their mouth around a slightly staining filter tip during a hungry pull. On those increasingly rare occasions where I happen across feminine smoking, I pause and watch them, transfixed. The memories of her smoky immersion, her cloudy delights of nasal and oral joy compel me afterwards to capture it on canvas and paper. But for years I felt that images of this kind were not to be shared. They aren’t Art and they certainly aren’t marketable.