Bridge House, London, 18 February 2019

Evenings like this remind me why I often try to arrive at least fifteen minutes early – or sometimes half an hour – for every life model booking. I would prefer to relax and wait, perhaps with a glass of wine, rather than risk being late when an inevitable train delay occurs. The precaution meant that when delays occurred en route to Bridge House, I was still five minutes early rather than ten minutes late…

It was my first time at Anerley and Penge Life Drawing since Tatiana Moressoni had returned from yogic wanderings in India and resumed running the group. Spiritual enlightenment had not inspired her to tamper with the perfection of short pose timings here. Indeed, it was as if she’d never been away. We started with two 2-minute poses and followed with four of 5-minutes and three of 10-minutes.

At first it looked like we might be low on artist numbers, but gradually more and more latecomers joined us. I assumed their plans were affected by the same train troubles as mine, but by about a quarter of an hour into the first half we had a good gathering distributed to all sides of the room. The warmth from so many extra bodies was such that I had to ask for the heater to be switched off. In February. Unprecedented!

Artwork by Tatiana Moressoni.

During the interval, three artists asked Tatiana whether it would be OK to pop out and bring chips back into the room. Of course Tatiana agreed, so off they went leaving art and coats behind… and were never seen again. I like to think this wasn’t a judgement on the likely excellence (or not) of my three 15-minute poses after the break. The lure of chips can be powerful.

At the end there was a generous show of appreciation from those remaining. Artworks were laid out upon the floor for collective appreciation. This booking fell in the midst of some duo sessions so it came as a nice, comfortable yet hard-worked reminder of the art of solo modelling in the round; maintaining dynamism and interesting sight-lines for at least three-quarters of those present for every pose. I still enjoy the challenge.