83a Geffrye Street, London, 21 August 2018

It used to be that I might only get to pose at The Workshop in Geffrye Street, Hoxton once every six months at most. Now, since the loss of his Eastbourne House venue in Bethnal Green, Adrian Dutton has life drawing sessions there twice a week, which in turn meant this Tuesday booking fell within a mere month of my last Monday one.

The pose lengths varied only slightly from my previous visit. First, 10-minutes standing then three poses of 3-minutes each, two of 5-minutes, and two of 15-minutes that took us up to an interval. Artists seemed to be joining us constantly throughout the opening pose until, with about 35 present, we were at capacity. Just as well no more arrived.

During our break, I cleared my pose space in the centre of the room so a trestle table could be brought out and loaded with loaves and dip to feed the multitude. Socialising and eating occupied the next half-hour, after which the room was reset and I resumed with a 30-minute standing pose with my right hand resting on top of a stick.

The most extraordinary aspect of this standing pose was that my hands and both feet went numb. In all my years of life modelling, numbness had never struck me quite like this before. I even wondered if I might collapse when the pose ended and I had to alter position. Fortunately I was able to make a very slow, controlled descent to ground.

A 30-minute seated pose completed the evening’s travails. Artists were encouraged to place their drawings on the floor and I was hugely gratified to discover strong works all around the room. With Esther here to draw me too, and notwithstanding a few tingling extremities, this had been a particularly pleasing session.