West Wickham Arts, Hayes, 16 December 2024

17 Dec 2024

This was likely to be my last booking of 2024, and there could be no finer way to end my life modelling year than the manner in which it began: a duo session with Esther. We would be posing at Hayes Free Church for West Wickham Arts Association.

While travelling to the venue we considered our poses. Esther had already been told we could decide the pose times. At our previous duo booking a series of short poses had suited the animators of Framestore. Here, however, longer seemed more apt.

So we suggested three 20-minute poses for the first half, followed by a single pose of 45 minutes after mince pies at the interval. The group agreed and so it came to pass, on a bench in the round for a full turn-out of artists, with the hall nicely heated.

Despite calling the shots for each pose, we failed to reach the end of any without one or both of us feeling some pain. Nonetheless, it was lovely working together. A strong connection strengthened in balance, understanding and intimacy as time passed.

It had been a difficult 72 hours for me ahead of this; both parents admitted to hospital after more than twelve hours on gurneys in A&E. They are both in their 80s, both with dementia, mum having collapsed at home overnight. Very tough times for them.

I’d accompanied them in the ambulance, waited with them in A&E, did the form-filling, made sure they were safe and their needs understood, while they themselves floated in and out of recognising me. I came straight to this life drawing from hospital visiting.

I’m only sharing this here because it’s what’s overwhelmingly going on with me at the moment. What else is in my head? But art has a power to take us from the traumatic, if only as a brief interlude. Time enough to slow, reconnect inside… and heal a little.