Garrett Centre, London, 24 February 2017

As I made my way to the Garrett Centre for the evening’s long-pose session, I tried to decide: what pose? My natural inclination is to stand as I imagine most models prefer sitting or laying down, so standing may be appreciated more. Then again, I stood last time and on a couple of other occasions so I reckoned I was due a change. I was still making up my mind when I entered and saw a step ladder in the pose space.

My destiny was clearly preordained… I would be seated at the top of a step ladder for the better part of two hours. And that was fine; I knew I could make it comfortable and interesting. First we cycled through some warm-up poses: three of 5-minutes and one of 8-minutes. I tried to make these varied, with a couple fairly dynamic to contrast the sedentary work ahead.

And so to the ladder. The most crucial moments of long poses are those last seconds before settling into position. One misjudgement of balance, or a pressure point, or the twist of a limb, or weight distribution, can mean much pain ahead. Even so, faced with two dozen artists all keen to begin, there’s an instinct to rush. On this occasion haste resulted in my left foot being pressed a bit too much into the angle of a rung. (sigh)

I sat upon my lofty perch for 35 minutes to the interval, and then a further 70 minutes with two stretch breaks before the end. Left foot and right hand needed shaking from their discomfort but otherwise it was all good and I absolutely loved the artworks that had been created. One artist even went to the trouble of drawing me with long blonde fly-away hair, whilst another got my grey sides perfectly. Nicely done – thank you.