“Please,” she’s down on her knees, face turned up like a daisy. “One more rib this time; I want to resonate inside.” The needle never stops; the artist refuses. "Blurred silhouettes move across the window, impossible bodies merging into chimeric shadows - Lumena Paxte’s famous golden glow pours across the street, warm candlelight against a galaxy of neon." - Frommer’s The Milky Way, ed. 3035 ‘No scars, I’m walking without pain after a week. Five stars!’ ‘bonework came out so well, if you want meatshop glamor-cool don’t come here P takes time but it’s worth it.’ - Lumena Paxte, Reviewed “I have worked it out, the pelvis will hold it - ribs vaulted to a point, arches buttressed on the shoulders -please,” she holds out crumpled blueprints, begging the artist’s back. “I’m so cramped inside - ” “We are born - basic. The earliest desire is a desire to change. And now the body is no longer a trap. Instead of one aesthetic, we have many...Not so glamorous! I do my own cleaning. An old-fashioned habit - what do you call the leftover bits of saints? I am a reliquary for what my patrons leave behind. But really it is mostly blood and fat and bone!”- Paxte, Illuminated! “Please -” she turns towards the door “ - I am unfinished.” Her back folds open, ribs vaulted out in gold-plated bone, the warm light of the shop glowing a soft rose through stained-glass veins in windowpane skin - abruptly cut off at the shoulderblades, her flesh still thick & opaque. The needle stops. The artist turns and takes the pages. The machines resume their motion and her shoulder blades bloom open.