The Bartlett, London, 14 March 2016

The setting for my second time modelling at The Bartlett School of Architecture was so utterly dissimilar to the first that it almost felt like work for a different group. Instead of occupying a small enclosed room in the building at 140 Hampstead Road, we were at the centre of a large, carpeted, curtained-off space within the complex at neighbouring no.132.

That wasn’t all that had changed – instead of having my back to the wall, I was now posing in the round; instead of half-a-dozen male artists, it was now a mixed group at least twice the size; and instead of needing heaters, I was comfortably warm with the ambient temperature. Consistency came in the form of the group’s kindly attentive organiser, Cova, plus her cool music playlist and the preferred pose lengths.

The session started late as artists were still arriving well after the scheduled time of 7:30pm. Once underway poses in the first half were 7-minutes, 2, 2, 1, 1, 1, 5, 5 and 10-minutes. After a break, I finished with 25-minutes reclining and 30-minutes sitting on the floor. Part way into the reclining pose, the temperature seemed to plummet significantly, but I made it to the end with no more than a couple of shivers.

Indeed I only encountered two difficulties: firstly, getting to the gents’ toilets, which for some reason – unlike the ladies’ – were behind a swipe-card security door; secondly, getting out of the building to go home. It’s such a rabbit warren, I couldn’t retrace my steps and eventually had to be shown the way. Curious that such issues should arise in a building for architects! Nonetheless, I give a big thumbs-up for the new space.