Over recent years I’ve been accustomed to catching a magnificent cold in mid-autumn and then passing through winter relatively unscathed. Having already achieved the first part of the deal this year, it was somewhat annoying to wake up this morning with a tell-tale tightness at the back of my throat.
Even more annoying was it breaking into a rough agitation midway through the second of three 20-minute poses during a first hour’s life modelling back at Wanstead House. It’s hard to suppress the urgent need to cough. A couple of minor ahems served only to distract the artists.
Tea at half time proved a better remedy. The final 30-minute pose – laying on a table, propped on one elbow – was free of all but the usual discomfort when disproportionate body weight is directed through one shoulder. It was a mellow session, nonetheless.
48 hours from laying naked on the sun-drenched sands of Corralejo in Fuerteventura, and I am back in Bethnal Green, posing nude on the floor mats of Eastbourne House. The previous day’s shock of returning to the British winter had been and gone. I was back in my element.
I ravel into contorted positions. If I had been stuck in these positions for half an hour during my long flight home it would have brought forth bitter complaints. Art, however, makes it worthwhile.
Art + I ravel = Air travel … which has no significance, but there it is.
I open the session with a 10-minute seated pose then work through five one-minute poses. The sequence continues: 3, 3, 5, 10, 15. We then break for piping hot lentil stew, rice, garlic bread, tea, marshmallows and a jaffa cake: a nice balanced diet to savour whilst chatting and browsing some quite excellent work:
Break time over, I round off with 25 minutes on my back with folded legs and a raised forearm, and finally a half-hour twisty seated pose. A damp chilly night, perhaps, had reduced artist numbers to 20-30 instead of the usual 40-50, but if anything this gave the group a more relaxed, open feel.
Or perhaps it was just the mood I was in. One in which to enjoy a nice session with a very good set of works to show for it at the end.
Life modelling can be a solitary business. While in pose the model is both the centre of attention and in total isolation. We become a different species of humanity to our artists; a curiosity. The model arrives, disrobes, works in static silence, then leaves. They may never encounter another their own kind.
The reality, of course, isn’t quite so bleak. I’ve enjoyed wonderful warm conversations with life artists and group organisers. Most significantly the Internet – and specifically Facebook – has done more than anything before it to provide space for communities of models to emerge.
Sharon Smithers, a Kent-based model based of some 14 years’ experience, has been instrumental in forging one such community. The secret Facebook group she founded in December 2009 already has 213 members. Establishing this flourishing community was one dream come true. Another of Sharon’s dreams came true last Sunday.
Naked Ambitions life drawing in Whitstable, Sunday 27 October 2013
For a long time she had wanted to stage her own multi-model life drawing event. It was discussed around the table in the Peter Cushing pub, Whitstable at the first meeting of friends and members of Sharon’s Facebook group. Here, on 19 January 2013, the event was given its name: Naked Ambitions.
First gathering of life models, at the Peter Cushing, Whitstable
Fast forward to 27 October 2013, at the Horsebridge Arts and Community Centre, Whitstable. Sharon Smithers is centre-stage. With her are four female and five male models. There too is event organiser, Mike Foreman, and fully 25 artists. It is 10am. Sharon makes a short, emotional speech. Naked Ambitions is a reality.
It’s fitting that five of the models – Sharon, Gill, Hope, Peter and myself – were among those present for that first gathering at the Peter Cushing. Joining us were Anthony, Brian, Laura, Leo and Richard. Artists and easels lined the walls of the Horsebridge’s roof space as we started all together with a 30-minute standing pose.
This was a nice group icebreaker to get us under way while latecomers arrived. Hope and I posed back to back. Afterwards we divided into three smaller groups within the same space. Each group would specialise in holding poses over particular ranges of time. Artists set their chairs around us according to their preferences.
Sharon, Gill and Leo occupied the centre space with single long poses. Brian, Hope and I were in one corner for poses of between 20 and 40 minutes. The others filled the adjacent corner with dynamic poses of one, five or 10 minutes.
Hope sat centrally on a chair in our middle group; I sat on the floor at her feet with my head resting on my right knee, while Brian lay on his side. This first pose was to have lasted 40 minutes but with timekeeping focused on the dynamic group, we probably ran closer to an hour.
Afterwards I filled a five minute interlude with a seated pose. On resumption we went the 35 minutes till lunch with Brian and Hope laying on their backs. I stood in a slight twist holding the back of the chair. Lunch was to have lasted half an hour, but with so many models and artists queuing at the centre’s café, an extension was needed.
When everyone had returned, our middle group swapped places with Anthony, Laura and Peter, while Sharon, Gill and Leo settled down in new long poses. For the shorter poses we took turns in two rounds of five minute poses each.
I started by laying down with one leg and one arm crooked upwards, and next held a lotus position with hands in prayer.
Then for 10 minutes fours of us curled around each other on the floor, reprising a pose from the previous weekend’s Angelo Musco photo shoot.
Hope and I next posed seated, side by side for 10 minutes; Brian worked through five athletic one-minute poses, and we concluded all together with a 10-minute tableau. It had been a good day’s work, one I warmed to more and more as it progressed.
I’ve posed in multi-model groups on many occasions, but this was the first time with smaller sub-groups working in a single space. The dynamics were interesting. During the morning there seemed to be more artists interested in the dynamic poses; in the afternoon it was long poses that drew most attention. Choice was appreciated.
Already there are plans afoot for repeat events next year. Mike’s management of the day ensured everything ran smoothly, and a good turn-out of artists meant that all 10 working life models got a good share of the takings for their contribution.
With experience, refinement and good quality modelling, events like this can only go from strength to strength. All that’s needed is the vision and passion of one inspired individual to get them off the ground. Take a bow, Sharon Smithers. You did it.
Anyone who thinks there’s nothing original left to be done with images of the human nude needs to thinks again. Only in the past year for example, have I discovered the astonishing works of Angelo Musco, and been captivated by his unique visions on a colossal yet minutely detailed scale.
Angelo’s is an art of genuine beauty; conception through substitution, creation through composition. He has taken inspiration from nature’s most wonderful phenomena: long chain molecules; fine plant tissues; spiralling shoals of fish; complex bird nests; the tunnel webs of spiders. Stripping away their substance, he rebuilds with thousands of photographed nude bodies.
© Angelo Musco 2012, all rights reserved, angelomusco.com
His works have been widely celebrated, including a feature in Time magazine, yet until now he had never worked outside the United States. This Saturday, however, he assembled 40-50 volunteers, four assistants and a fellow photographer at Sunbeam Studios in London for a special five-hour shoot. I was privileged to be a part of it.
Our catalyst was fellow model and nude performance specialist, Peter Jacobs, with whom I’ve had the pleasure of working numerous times. It was Peter who made initial contact with Angelo and put in a huge amount of work to round up participants on both sides of the camera.
Cometh the day I was surprised quite how many people I knew from previous projects: my fellow Mudheads, Chas, Cy and the two Peters; Adrian, Carol, Gil and John from Existere; Howard and Karen, Lisa, Richard, Rob, Martin and Yvonne from Ghostbird; Camila from Does My…Do I?; and fellow life models Chris, Chris, Hope, Ian, Robert, Sabine and Sharon. An extraordinary gathering of the tribes.
After some introductory words from Angelo and his team, we undressed and entered the all-white space of the studio. Angelo and his fellow photographer Pau Ros would be capturing images from a balcony running the length of one wall.
Tim does the introductions
We worked right through from 11am till around 3pm before taking a break. Angelo and Pau then reviewed their images, after which we resumed for a final session taking us to a 4pm finish. In that time:
- we stood en masse, backs to the photographers, pointing upwards in different layered rows and configurations;
- we lay on the floor in arches of three people at a time, with two ‘supports’ face up, then down, then sideways, and the arching person swapping directions;
- we formed larger arches of five people, using two for each support with the same variations as above;
- we connected in rows of three people, legs across shoulders, arms to legs;
- we extended in longer rows as tramlines that reached the length of the studio;
- we curled on the floor in clusters of four, tightly entwined to eliminate white space between our bodies;
- we amassed in one vast cluster, turning two or three times and reaching arms out in different directions, onto who or what, it was sometimes hard to tell;
- and we stood again in close rectangles facing forwards and away, looking ahead or reaching up.
© Angelo Musco 2013, all rights reserved, angelomusco.com
All the while Angelo’s assistants were adjusting our positions, straightening our lines or smoothing curves. The poses were generally quite simple but on the cold hard floor of the studio they weren’t always tremendously comfortable.
© Angelo Musco 2013, all rights reserved, angelomusco.com
Our reward – aside from enjoying a superb day in the excellent company of friends – was a small print from a previous masterpiece (‘Eyrie’), signed by the master himself. Indeed, we were shown kindness and respect throughout.
© Angelo Musco 2013, all rights reserved, angelomusco.com
Angelo descended from his balcony at the end of the day, offered his thanks and took time to pose for countless individual souvenir photos with models. He is definitely one of the nice guys to work for.
With the lad himself
After the event, back in our clothes, many of us wandered towards Portobello Road to wind down with some food and drink.
As our unlikely group sat among the trendy young things at the heart of the famous market, I wondered if they could imagine us as the heaving heap of naked humanity that we’d been just hours before… or if one day they may marvel at the breathtaking artworks that we would become in the months ahead.
After millennia of the nude in art, the natural body can still surprise and inspire.
It has become a highlight of the London life drawing calendar. An art extravaganza, no less. It is the annual ‘Big Draw‘ grand collaboration between London Drawing and Spirited Bodies, bringing together a multitude of artists and life models under one roof to do what they do best.
This year’s drawing theatre – subtitled ‘a human orchestration’ – took place yesterday in St John’s church, opposite Waterloo Station. When I arrived at 11am, clouds were breaking up and the sun was starting to shine through after the dreary overnight rain. It augured well for a good day.
Spirited Bodies’ artistic director Esther had assembled 19 life models to deliver the performances. We ranged from the hugely experienced to a very brave first-timer. It was lovely to be working again with Camila, Clifford, LaDawn, Letizia, Liliana, Peter and Ursula, and making many new friends. Special credit goes to another frequent model collaborator, Santosh, who was on logistics duty for the day.
The event was to be comprised of three separate performances starting at 1pm so we had a couple of hours to rehearse. David and Anne of London Drawing, together with Esther, took us through practice runs for the centrepiece of the day. Afterwards we retired to the organ balcony for food and to change before the artists began arriving.
Performance 1
Rather than change into robes we simply set aside surplus layers of clothes, removed our underwear, and then dressed again. As artists began to fill the wide space of the church, collecting complimentary art materials before settling on chairs or the floor, so we did the same, discretely and anonymously scattering ourselves among them.
Come one o’clock, David and Anne introduced Canon Giles Goddard, who spoke well about the occasion and why the nudity of the models sat comfortably with the church. Next came some words about the day’s programme, and Esther spoke about Spirited Bodies and the models. The principals then departed, leaving the artists to assume that models would file out from backstage and assemble on the cushioned platform near the altar space.
But no. Instead, after a couple of minutes Esther moved amongst us and made subtle signs to individual models. When we each received our signal, we quickly undressed and stood in pose. Nude bodies rose up across the congregation over a period of ten minutes. Artists were never sure who would be next. Afterwards at least one said she dreaded getting the sign in case it meant she had to stand naked too.
This performance lasted about an hour. Models were at liberty to change pose but I opted to maintain a single long pose for the duration. Towards the end, Esther came among us again, signalling us individually to sit and dress. When all was done, the artists were invited to share their work for others to admire. As ever in a multi-model event, it was a relief to see at least some of the artists had drawn me.
Performance 2
Returning to the balcony, we once more plundered the buffet, then changed into our gowns. Esther lead us back down the stairs, single file in order of our height with the tallest (me) first. We waited silently out of sight while David and Anne introduced our second performance, then put our coverings to one side and slowly processed naked down the central nave carpet.
Standing in line the length of the carpet, we turned to face the balcony. Christine – a life model and superb vocalist – had remained on high and now set about leading us through a series of vocalisation effects. She filled the church with sound, then took a pace back as cue for us to provide an echoing response.
After ten minutes of call and response, Christine descended to join us. We turned to face forward, and Esther started us in a spiralling walk around a wooden cube. Ursula stepped onto the cube and our spiral tightened around her. Those on the outside then lowered themselves to the floor. We were ready to begin the next piece.
Ursula, who is a wonderful singer, began projecting a range of melodious sounds and phrases. The rest of us, rather than responding in kind, improvised with every manner of vocal effect, and threw in several slaps and clicks for good measure.
As we hummed, droned, whooped, boomed, clicked, whistled, tisked and shushed, Ursula belted out snatches of song. In silent moments we changed pose a couple of times. Again, I stood throughout. With Ursula elevated to equal height with me, we took a rare opportunity to pose with arms around each other’s shoulders.
Our work with sound had been carefully planned, but a certain amount of spontaneity took over in the execution. By general consent it worked extremely well. Within the resonant walls of the high-ceilinged church, it added an extra dimension of unseen form. To our joy the artists surprised us with warm unbidden applause as we filed out.
Artworks were placed around the carpet during the second break and we returned in gowns to admire how our efforts had been interpreted.
Performance 3
Our final performance was a more conventional group tableau. Once more we disrobed out of sight and then filed out to our cushioned tables and stools. I sat slightly to the left of centre, as seen from the floor, and again went for a single long pose – right arm resting on right thigh, left arm extended to the table, left leg hooked behind right.
The piece lasted between forty-five minutes and one hour. At the end we stood, held hands, and took a bow to prolonged applause. It had been a long but exceptionally enjoyable, successful day. Esther, David and Anne were delighted. Most importantly the artists seemed happy with the event and the unique opportunities it presented.
I’ve tended to take positives from all the life drawing events in which I’ve been involved. This one, however, definitely had something special that was way beyond the norm. It reminded me of coming away from the ‘Inversed voyeurism‘ project in the summer feeling we had got an exceptionally special group together.
This drawing theatre had a fine group, a brilliant concept and fantastic orchestration. The venue, the atmosphere, the schedule, the balance of planning and spontaneity, the good vibe from the artists, even the sunshine blazing through the windows, it all came together perfectly. Happy times. Full credit to the organisers – I hope we did them proud.
Tomorrow sees the capital’s big life drawing event of the year as once again London Drawing and Spirited Bodies combine forces to deliver an art extravaganza.
As a warm-up for the main event, half a dozen of us got together to model for London Drawing’s regular Thursday evening group at Battersea Arts Centre. The pose pattern for the first half was: three of us for 15 minutes; then all six together for five minutes, five minutes, five minutes and 20 minutes.
After a break we completed the session with 40 minutes in which the models were at liberty to move whenever they saw fit. I chose to hold a single pose. Some fruits of the artists’ endeavours are below.
“No, Ava! Kill the Mechanic! Kill the Mechanic!!”
So screamed The Watcher – great-granddaughter of Raven Rouge – as she fought off Ava Iscariot, a flesh-turned-metal cyborg. Ava rounded on the Mechanic. With a curl on her lips and murder in her eyes, she lunged. Together they locked in combat.
The Watcher screamed again: “Pencil to the heart! Pencil to the heart!” The drawing tools that had been grafted onto Ava’s fingers strained forward. A single graphite tip pressed to the Mechanic’s sternum.
Slowly he sank down on to his knees, haunches to heels, faded slightly forward and deactivated. As his silver cap tumbled to the floor, The Watcher and Ava ran joyfully to a new alternative future…
At most life drawing groups, the organiser will end the last pose with an instruction to stop drawing, an offer of thanks, and a wish for safe journeys home. This, however, was Art Macabre, and the denouement of their Digital Dystopia. Life poses are the dishes served throughout an evening’s narrative.
There were to be two of us modelling for Digital Dystopia: Ava Iscariot as the heroine, and me as an evil cyborg, the Mechanic. Art Macabre supremo, Nikki, had conceived a plot in which she played her own great-granddaughter, The Watcher, organising life drawing speakeasies in a future world where all art is outlawed except android art.
Ava and I both arrived at Cass Art, Islington an hour or so early. Nikki was a couple of minutes behind. She had brought fewer props than usual this time: just two suitcases full. With Linsay and Aaron completing the backstage team in our small (un)dressing room, we set about preparing.
Models were to be body painted so we stripped naked and donned our gowns. While Aaron decorated Ava with fine lines of fading bronze, Nikki coloured me a silver face, neck and breast triangle; bronze ribs and back decoration, black for eyes, jawline, curly moustache and a large ‘M’ on the forehead.
After applying a few extra adornments, Nikki opened the event. Ava would model solo for the first 40 minutes in a sequence of poses of increasing length.
© Art Macabre, Aaron Jacob Jones 2013, all rights reserved deathdrawing.com
As she began her final 15-minute pose, I made my entrance as the Mechanic. By now in addition to body paint I was further embellished with a silver peaked cap, eye-patch with flashing red light, latex gloves, a mass of clear tubes dangling from my stomach to my knees, a flashlight in one hand and a glitter ball on a stick in the other. Evil!
© Art Macabre, Aaron Jacob Jones 2013, all rights reserved deathdrawing.com
I first set about menacing the artists with my flashlight beam, or simply by looming over them while they drew. Next I approached Nikki and chalked enigmatic symbols on a board to indicate my instructions: Ava Iscariot was to be taken for ‘upgrading’ to cyborg. I stood sentinel above the cowering Ava as we continued her final 10 minutes in a duo pose.
© Art Macabre, Aaron Jacob Jones 2013, all rights reserved deathdrawing.com
A short break followed, during which Ava was dressed in her cyborg outfit – a silver jumpsuit with all the trimmings. Meanwhile I was given a top-up of paint, wires, tubes, pens, foil for my left arm, and then accompanied back out by Nikki for a 10-minute pose in the act of upgrading Ava’s previous body props.
Before leaving me, Nikki placed in my right hand a weird vibrating device with a twirling paint brush on the end. For a male life model, essentially nude before a semi-circle of attentive artists, there is a potential occupational hazard to standing in contact with a vibrating thing for 10 minutes. Fortunately the worst case scenario did not arise.
Nikki returned with the now fully upgraded Ava, who stood passive and upright, directly facing the artists. I paced around her then stood directly behind, towering above with arms slightly spread in an attempt to convey a triumph of evil dominance. We held the pose for 20 minutes.
© Art Macabre, Aaron Jacob Jones 2013, all rights reserved deathdrawing.com
In the final 15-minute pose the tables were turned. Ava took the ascendancy, standing high upon an oil drum while I could only glare dispassionately from below at the being I had failed to subjugate. And that, I thought, was that…
© Art Macabre, Aaron Jacob Jones 2013, all rights reserved deathdrawing.com
I should have remembered, however, that Nikki has a mischievous streak a mile wide. The part of the script not shared with me was that when I helped Ava down from the oil drum at the end of the pose she was to go haywire. First she set about Nikki, then Nikki set her about me.
“No, Ava! Kill the Mechanic! Kill the Mechanic!!”
It put my improv skills to the test, and gave the artists some light relief at the end of their evening’s work. Collectively we came out of character, if not out of costume, and mingled around admiring the art created.
After a brief struggle to remove the paraphernalia clipped, strapped or wrapped around my body, all that remained was the body paint. As ever, it’s removal was no mean feat in the tiny wash basin of Cass Art’s staff toilets.
With our dystopian future successfully performed, thoughts turned to our own futures. Ideas are never lacking with Art Macabre. Plans are already afoot for new events. The future is bright; the future is macabre.
Art Macabre blog posts:
steve ritter 