Mall Galleries, London, 10 January 2020
My first booking with Hesketh Hubbard Art Society at Mall Galleries in 2020 was a portrait sitting. This was the society’s first session of the year and, quite appropriately, had a high turn-out of members. Not too many intent on drawing me it seemed at first, but come 6pm a sudden flurry of chairs were dragged across to my corner.
Two hours. One complete hour without movement, then a fifteen minute break for tea and digestives before a final fully static hour. The first half was hardest as a tiredness took hold about midway through. The more my mind focused on avoiding drowsiness, the more that very thought became a catalyst for downward flickering eyelids.
Conversations during the interval reinvigorated my brain. At some point in the second half, I became mindfully conscious of every sound in what ought to have been a quiet room. Each scratch and scrape, cough and clatter held my sharp attention till 8:15pm when, bright as a button, I was free at last to appreciate this multitude of myself in art.
Wonderful works Steve! Mind you, talking about portrait sitting, normally at longer legs than life drawing and the possibility of the model falling into a semi-consciousness mode, hence face expression quite often in grasp of gravity, remodelling its birthgiven features into a grotesque combination of unwanted and unintended grmaces. On many occassions artists and models have discussed this, and I thought it might be a good thing to give a voice to the model, i.e. keeping his/her mind awake…ha ha, just a suggestion…