Fairkytes Arts Centre, London, 17 July 2018

When Esther and I returned to Fairkytes Arts Centre for our third time modelling as a couple there, we brought some freshly rehearsed poses and a shift from serving solely as passive templates for artistic interpretation. We would open up to the semi-circle of artists in front of us while we posed – to begin with, for 5, 10, 15 and 15-minutes.

Back in March, organiser Natansky had modelled at one of Esther’s Spirited Bodies Stories of Women events, wherein a feature is the models speaking about themselves and answering questions from artists; it’s a means of revealing the model as a human being rather than just a human body. Now, at LeNu Life Drawing, it was our turn.

For the opening 5-minute pose, we each balanced on one leg whilst Esther described the sequence of events that led her to become a life model. Next Esther stood behind me while I sat cross-legged upon the floor for 10-minutes and told my own story. With twice as long in which to do so, I… spoke… a… little… slower.

From this beginning, the intention was that we would go on and discuss all manner of other concerns. The artists here are a very sociable bunch, however, so in practice all we’d done was lit the touchpaper for them to begin chatting amongst themselves. We took a few more questions, but by now several conversations were going on at once!

Of course, it didn’t matter so long as everyone was enjoying the session. Esther and I remained comfortable throughout, and continued to engage after the interval during our final two poses of 20-minutes. It had been fascinating to participate this small taste of the original Spirited Bodies innovation. Thank you, LeNu, for listening and drawing us.