As sometimes happens, I found the lower floor at Wanstead House fully occupied by worshippers of Grace Church. This was a tad awkward for me when I arrived, as they had congregated in the room through which the gents’ toilets are accessed. I deferred answering the call of nature and instead helped life drawing class organiser, Patrick to take the tea-making things upstairs to the Roding Room, where poses would begin at 10:30am.
As our start time neared, I sensed that nature would not be ignored much longer, so I could either pass through the ranks now or wait till later when I would be wearing just a dressing gown. I made my move and, with an American pastor preaching from their video screen, all Christian eyes duly followed me to the loo. I felt more self-conscious at that moment than I did five minutes later, when stripped naked with eight strangers scrutinising and sketching every detail of my body…
I began with 10-minutes standing then sat on the floor with much crossing of limbs for another 10-minutes. For 40-minutes, I sat on a low stool in an attitude vaguely akin to Auguste Rodin’s The Thinker, and finally – after refreshments – I lay on the floor with my head and arms resting on the stool for a hand-numbing 35-minutes. It was a quiet yet pleasant session as ever at Wanstead House, and particularly nice to see Patrick work on a couple of quick-fire oil sketches – praise be.
I inherited this booking from Lidia: artist, fellow model and friend who’d photographed Esther and me in January last year. She’d travelled to Germany where her anti-FGM film Adam & Eve had been selected to be shown during Berlin Feminist Film Week. Unfortunately, her return flight coincided with a strike by ground staff at Berlin airports; there would be no way to reach her next UK life model booking at The Create Place in Bethnal Green, so she called out for a replacement – and I got the job.
It would be my first time at the Life Drawing Salon but I had heard only nice things. On arriving I introduced myself to the group’s profoundly laid-back organiser, Nils. He had already texted me his pose plan for the evening: three poses of 2-minutes, three of 5-minutes, two of 20-minutes, then a half-hour break, and finally two of 30-minutes to end the evening. Tea, sandwiches and pastries were freely available at the interval and – most novel of all – each pose would be assigned music of the same length.
The ingredients for an excellent evening’s life art were all there so it was little wonder the small ground floor space was packed on all sides by artists. I barely had room to drop my robe and begin. Even the ceiling was close – for the first pose I held onto an overhead beam with one hand and reached back to grab a raised leg with the other. I bumped my head on the lights too, and found the atmosphere in the room hot and at times almost stifling, but truly I loved the intensity, enthusiasm and the playlist.
Working in the round, I turned my way through some tried and tested poses together with a couple of newer variations. When Nils brought the session a halt to at 9:30pm, there was much hubbub and banter. I photographed drawings whilst chatting with the artists – a few of them I’d recognised from other life groups. People will travel happily for the appreciation of their art. Which brings me back to Lidia and her film on female genital mutilation… Adam & Eve is an incredibly powerful work; it must be seen.
I entered Diorama Arts Centre and asked at reception for City Academy life drawing in the Apache room. Instead I was pointed to the Kodo room: “up the stairs, just follow the signs“. In that large bare white space, I found some orange chairs stacked around the walls, a few lamps on black poles, and our art tutor for the evening, Doris A. Day. He explained that this was the last session of a 5-week course so four poses of 20 to 30-minutes each would be ideal.
While Doris disappeared to fetch art materials, another tutor entered and borrowed all the lamps that weren’t chained to the wall. Artists started to arrive and organise their plastic chairs in a broad semi-circle facing my trusty white sheet, which I’d placed on the cold hard floor. In total, there would be nine drawing me. When Doris returned, he asked me to begin with a standing pose; I balanced on my right leg, held my left foot, and reached up to a ceiling sprinkler pipe.
I felt physically stable yet mentally wobbly in that first pose – possibly the result of a four-hour flight the day before. Doris called time after 25-minutes, then taped the nine drawings to a wall for our collective view. Next he asked for a 30-minute seated pose, so I settled down with my limbs knotted but comfortable. After a lengthy break for the purchase of hairspray, with which to fix charcoals, there was time for only one further 30-minute pose. I decided to stand again, one arm raised, the other out sideways.
There was little atmosphere in the room, although the artists were amiable with each other and clearly held Doris in high regard. I warmed to him too in an otherwise chilly space, but cannot say the same for City Academy. I’d made the mistake of agreeing this booking before knowing the hourly rate, and was shocked to find it the lowest I’d encountered anywhere in 5 years of modelling. I certainly wouldn’t return unless they pay a fair rate – I ask all life models to boycott them for the sake of the profession!
Update – 21 December 2017
Following this booking, I heard no more from City Academy until November 2017, at which time I was offered a corporate booking at a substantially improved rate. I accepted, and the whole process was handled by City Academy with impeccable professionalism from start to finish.
The Bourne & Hollingsworth Buildings basement always appears to me somehow crudely reminiscent of an Ottoman Empire interior. Notwithstanding the concrete floor and ceiling, metal girders and French tapestry print on thin cotton sheets that line the walls – for me, it’s the low cushioned benches covered in patterned fabric that extend continuously round the room, and the rows of small holes that emit a kaleidoscope of pastel-tinted light from behind the tapestry prints…
When I arrived, all the artists present were young women – I felt as though I’d walked into the wrong hammam.
By the time a few more artists joined us, including some men, there were 18 in total. Gareth was running the show on behalf of Adrian Dutton. He explained his plan for poses: after 10-minutes standing, I was to rotate through four poses of 2.5-minutes, descending a little with each move. I would next rotate through four 5-minute poses, all sitting on a low cushioned cube, and then stand again for a single pose up to the interval – for this I grasped one of the girders for 13-minutes.
The second half began with 5-minutes standing, followed by two reclining poses each of 15-minutes, aligned east to west, then south to north. The session concluded with two 12-minute seated poses – one on the floor, the other reprising an earlier pose on the cube that Gareth had particularly liked. What an enjoyable evening! This venue is far from being a favourite but the format and times of poses fitted my style perfectly. I could be both expressive and comfortable – the artists seemed well pleased too.
It was supposed to be a quiet week for me, with Monday at Mall Galleries being my only booking. Sunday evening offers from Ravensbourne and SketchPad Drawing, however, changed all that – Wednesday 1 March would be a third successive evening of working after my full-time day job. Combined with unaccountably disrupted sleep, I was becoming a physically tired life model. Still, I felt enthused for all three sessions, each one having its own special appeal.
Lisa – organiser of SketchPad Drawing – had asked if there was any theme I fancied. Hmm. “Theme, theme, theme… well, it’s St David’s Day so you could furnish us with daffodils and leeks if you like.” Duly, three small bunches of daffodils awaited when I arrived at The Prince Regent – though it seemed I wouldn’t be having a leek in pose. The ‘us’ in my consideration was whomever Lisa had booked as her other model; this turned out to be Vanessa, who I’d last seen when working there in October.
Vanessa was to start modelling in the main room – entwined in the legs of a table on its side – whilst I would take the floor in an adjacent room. As is the standard format, we would then swap rooms at half-time. Lisa armed me with two bunches of the daffs and asked me to be expressive with my limbs through a sequence of short to medium pose lengths. I began with 10-minutes standing, one arm crooked over my head, and the other crooked across my belly.
I went down on one knee for 5-minutes, then stood on one leg for a further 5-minutes, with the other knee folded tight upon a chest of drawers. Realising that I’d weakened my lower limbs a little, I was tempted to make the next pose easy. Lisa was keen for me to stand in the middle of the room, however, open and expansive for 15-minutes. I readily agreed but could feel my thigh and calf muscles fibrillating throughout. For the final 20-minutes of our first half, I sat on the floor – angular but comfortable.
During the interval I switched to the main room where a single 40-minute pose would bring our session to an end. Lisa asked that I lay upon a sofa – fine by me! At first, I hitched up my knees so I was partly-curled, but instead she asked that I sprawl out, with one foot down on the floor. I duly complied and, with daffodils under each armpit, concluded the session in relative comfort. As ever, a plethora of artists at easels had worked wonders. This remains one of my top 5 favourite venues to model.
The call-out for this job was posted to the Register of Artists Models (RAM) website on Tuesday 21 February, exactly a week in advance. It took me two days to notice it, so I didn’t hold out much hope when I emailed my speculative pitch. Thus, it came as a pleasant surprise when I received a text message, late Sunday evening, offering me the booking. My RAM subscription for the year had finally paid off.
Ravensbourne is a modern campus on the Greenwich peninsula, directly outside the O2 Arena. Strange I had not previously been here, despite it being so convenient for me to reach. Indeed the only inconvenience was that Esther and I had arranged to go out for a meal on this date, but we are adaptable – the organisers kindly permitted Esther to join us as an artist, and we still shared a fine Mexican meal afterwards.
I was greeted at Ravensbourne by Anita, the art tutor. In my email to her, I’d said “My ‘interesting’ quality is in being, at 6’4″, one of the tallest life models on the circuit. At 10st9, I’m also quite slender and have been described as Schiele-esque“. Thus, she was quite keen on me to reproduce some Egon Schiele poses. These can be tricky but Anita was so engaging and considerate that we found an easy accord.
I started with quick poses: three of 2-minutes, one of 5-minutes, one 10-minutes – a mixture of dynamism, diversity, and attempted elegance. The first half ended with an Egon Schiele pose of 25-minutes, in which most joints were at right-angles. The last 40-minutes was a Schiele adaptation, seated on the floor. I’d thoroughly enjoyed this session, all the more so for Esther being there. Hopefully we will return some day.
I’ve enjoyed plenty of bookings modelling solo or duo on the 30-minute and long pose sessions for Hesketh Hubbard Art Society… but how might I get on posing for their portrait work? This was the evening I would find out. I was to be seated – clothed and motionless – for one complete hour, then have a 15-minute break for tea and biscuits before returning to another full hour in the same position.
As ever, I found Mall Galleries busy with artists. Most were there for the nude poses but portraiture gets its own small yet loyal following. Nine artists were present – eight of them practising on the other – when I arrived. With a couple of minutes till our 6pm start, I took my place in front of their semi-circle, picked a convenient gaze point, and settled my body. As always with portrait work, the challenge would be to stay awake.
I felt my eyelids getting heavier during the first hour, although they never quite flickered shut. Something in the half-time tea must have perked me up, however, as I was quite alert after that. I whiled away the session setting myself geography tests: 25 countries beginning with the letter ‘S’; 15 capital cities beginning with ‘B’; 11 countries beginning with ‘A’; 7 countries beginning with ‘U’…
I’d employed these simple memory challenges many times before, so really I ought to come up with something original. Not that it matters. In less imaginative moments, I’m more likely to be counting down seconds – anything to pass the time when meditation and internal creative writing elude me. At 8:15pm, we were done. I was very grateful to the six artists who stayed with me and shared a little mutual appreciation at the end.
steve ritter 