“I can call the time after 5 minutes, if you like,” offered Carla. “No, it’s fine, let’s just do it,” I replied with excess confidence whilst part-squatting, part-kneeling in a precarious balance atop a high stool. “All right,” announced Carla, “this is a 10 minute pose.” The fire entered my limbs before we’d reached halfway, but our Radiohead soundtrack was the perfect balm…
This was my first pose after the break during what was my first visit to The Star by Hackney Downs since April. I closed the session with a rather more comfortable, if admittedly less interesting, seated pose on the edge of a couch. 15-20 minutes later we were done and the evening’s works could be admired in a vast spread occupying the whole of our upstairs floor.
When I’d arrived at the pub, the group’s co-coordinators – Catherine Hall and Carla Nizzola – had almost finished setting up. All new boxes of materials were ready and waiting for artists to help themselves. After a brief skirmish with the sound system, a quick cough and a drag, and the procurement of an art-enhancing bottle of red, they were ready to go.
Short poses preceded the break. In a departure from tradition, I started with 5 minutes reclining on the couch, then perched upright upon a low stool for 3 minutes. 2 minutes standing were followed by three 1-minute poses and three 30-second poses. After this energetic flurry, I was glad to be seated again for 10 minutes, and finally folded double on the floor for another 10.
The evening finished with seven of us – one model, two coordinators, two artists and two dogs – taking our tipples to the tables outside for a spot of après-art chit-chat. In such good company it would have been a fine night out even without our drawing and life modelling. Instead we had it all and I can’t wait for enough months to elapse that I can enjoy it again.
Deeper into the forest we went. Our bare skin cooled in the shadowy stillness beneath its green canopy. Patches of dappled sunlight were welcome like a warm shower. We lingered by knots of holly, nests of ferns, gnarled trees and golden clearings. We were woodland creatures, painted and free.
Once upon a time
It all began five hours earlier when Amanda of Feel Good Painted collected me and my fellow creature, Maria, from outside Romford station. At her home studio we were joined by Amanda’s partner in paints, Annmarie, and her good friend, Kim. Together we would share much of the afternoon getting into character.
After Maria and I had changed into skimpy decorated underwear, we started with our head-to-toe foundation of colours. Amanda worked on Maria while Annmarie sponged mottled layers of paint onto me. Leaves, wings, horns, eyelashes and elfin ears were glued onto our bodies in all the right places.
Happily ever after
And when we were done, we headed down to Hainault Forest Country Park. Sadly Annmarie couldn’t join us but Amanda’s husband, Mark, stepped in and took several of the photos posted here. The hour or so of our shoot was outstanding fun that made all the preceding hours of preparation worthwhile.
This was my first time posing with Maria. She said her only modelling experience has been with Amanda, but she’s such a natural she could open up a whole new world for herself if it’s what she wants. It’s what happened to me. I continue to be astounded by the opportunities that come my way, and the wonderful people I’m lucky to work with.
Life is magical in the woods.
All photos © Feel Good Painted
Have you ever done something without knowing why?
Psychologist Sigmund Freud, in his 1915 paper ‘The Unconscious’, introduced the notion of a dynamic unconscious that works in a different way from consciousness, with its own kind of logic. The Freud Museum of London marked the centenary of this revolutionary idea by staging a Festival of the Unconscious – the Unconscious Revisited – throughout the summer, from late June till early October.
On 25 August it was the turn of Art Macabre to revisit the Freud Museum and host another unique drawing salon, specially tailored to the festival’s theme. I’d posed in February for Eros and Death – their previous salon at the museum – and I was the happiest model in town to be invited back for their all-new event. Artists shared my enthusiasm for this exceptional opportunity:
“Sketch scenes pulled directly from the depths of your own dark unconscious and imagination. Illustrate your darkest dreams and the mysteries of the mind, inspired by the Art Macabre live model characters and scenes. How do we represent and reveal the unconscious in art? Can drawing unlock our unconscious? Explore Freud’s theories of the unconscious and how artists since have engaged with them, from Surrealism to contemporary artists. An interactive creative workshop exploring how drawing connects the hand, mind and heart. Draw from your inner psyche and explore representing the unseen and unknown through drawing.
“Art Macabre invite you to participate in drawing exercises and games that will help you sketch from both sides of your brain and go into a flow state of consciousness. From sketching scenes featuring nude figures depicting nightmares and symbolism in dreams, to Surrealist automatism sketching exercises to create your own ‘Exquisite Corpse’ artworks.“
The players
Maybe it’s a good habit. maybe bad, but I arrived earlier than our early gathering time and was first on the scene. As good fortune had it, I was recognised loitering outside by Lili, the museum’s event manager, and invited in for a cup of tea. I’d barely started my Freudian sips when I was joined upstairs by fellow models Linsay and Gee.
We had worked together a few times before. I’d last posed with Gee at The Dying Art exhibition in May, whilst all three of us had modelled for The Blizzard of Oz panto in 2013. Our muse quartet was completed by Bella: a newcomer to Art Macabre but an experienced artist, model, and life group organiser in her own right. With the arrival of Art Macabre’s director and fabulist-in-chief, Nikki, we were all set to go.
The exquisite corpse
The event was fully booked, which meant up to 50 artists were expected. They began arriving almost immediately and, whilst Lili provided each one with a welcoming glass of wine, Nikki and Linsay readied the main exhibition room for art. The three of us left behind the scenes chatted away to pass the time; I sipped tea, Gee stripped naked, and Bella stitched together odd halves of leggings.
When at last the artists were assembled in one room, Nikki got them warmed up with a selection of exercises in unconscious drawing. These included inviting everybody to draw their passive hand: first blind line drawing with eyes closed, then continuous line drawing with eyes open and free association images superimposed afterwards.
Collaborative practice was introduced to the session in the form of exquisite corpse drawings.
© Alison Jane
Lines continued to flow from the depths of the unconscious with automatic drawing, once more over-drawn with associated images.
Psyche and surreal
As these activities neared an end, it was time for models to take up their positions on the first floor. Bella would be in the exhibition room, Gee occupied Anna Freud’s room and I was to stand on the landing. We had props but were otherwise nude and without body paint. My role was to recreate the surrealist paintings of René Magritte. I began with The Son of Man.
© René Magritte – The Son of Man, 1946
I had a vintage bowler hat perched on my head, and held a small plastic apple in front of my face. Deviating from the original painting, I crooked my right arm and looped the index finger and thumb. This gesture was intended to give the artists something extra upon which to apply their automatic drawing embellishments, if the mood took them.
© Frances Jones
Artists were free to roam wherever they pleased, without time constraints. Through the doorway to my left they would find Gee posing with two empty picture frames that she positioned over various parts of her body. Freud’s theory of psychosexual development postulated that children focus on different parts of their bodies; now Gee’s artists were invited to do the same.
Beyond my sight through the doorway that I faced, Bella lay upon a replica of Freud’s famous couch… perchance to dream. Freud considered dreams to be “the royal road to the unconscious”, serving as valuable clues to how the unconscious mind operates. Yet while Freud would have made profound observations of Bella’s dreams, our artists made their own keen observations of Bella herself.
© Alison Jane
© S. Rizvi
There were no time limits to our poses; we could alter positions at our own discretion. Nikki’s playlist helped me gauge minutes by counting off individual tracks. When I felt I had been still for around a quarter of an hour, I gave my artists notice that I would be changing pose in 30 seconds. My next pose would be an approximation of Magritte’s Man in a Bowler Hat.
© René Magritte – Man in a Bowler Hat, 1964
I put down the apple and rummaged in my suitcase of props. In the absence of a dove I picked out the Art Macabre raven and held it in front of my face. For added variety, in my free right hand I raised aloft a red flower. Naturally I retained the vintage bowler hat, and once more I reckoned to stay in pose for around 15 to 20 minutes.
Lovers and horses
“I’ll be changing pose in one minute.” When I had silently counted 60 seconds, Nikki appeared and took me aside to prepare for something different. My final poses would be duo tableaux with Bella, taking inspiration from Magritte’s The Lovers. Nikki had asked tentatively beforehand if anyone would mind and, after a little hesitation, Bella spiritedly accepted having a “new best friend” for the duration.
© René Magritte – The Lovers, 1928
Of course, for naked strangers who had met only two hours earlier, our pose was not quite so intimate. We placed our individually shrouded heads close enough together, cheek by cheek, to appear as if kissing. Nikki positioned hands on arms or hips, but otherwise we maintained a small respectful space between our standing bodies. This pose would last for 15 minutes.
© Frances Jones
Away in Anna Freud’s room, Linsay was taking her turn to model. She was given the pleasure of posing entirely nude save for leather horse harnesses, thereby recreating ‘the terror of tiny Hans’. Sigmund Freud maintained correspondence with the father of Hans to explore the 5 year-old’s phobia of horses. We can only speculate as to what effect the majestic sight of Linsay in all her glory might have wrought upon the lad.
© Clarissa May Lovett
When Bella and I completed our standing Surrealist smooch we shifted across to the Freudian couch, feigning a similar scene in greater comfort. Shortly after we’d settled, however, I found myself very short of air behind my facial shroud. Trying not to appear as if indulging in unseemly panting, I eventually regained my composure by breathing solely through my nose. Such occupational hazards…
© Alison Jane
Return to consciousness
Come 9pm, we were free to unravel and dress ourselves. We then dashed downstairs in the hope of seeing some of the artworks produced but, just like my last time at the Freud Museum, we were too late; artists had packed away and most had left already. We could only hope some artists works would share their work on social media – I’m very grateful to those named above for kindly doing so.
It had been a remarkable Art Macabre drawing salon, in a singular historic building. I have nothing but admiration for Lili and the museum hierarchy for having the vision to stage such an imaginative, popular and fitting event in the last home Sigmund Freud. The unconscious had found new physical form, and much joy had been shared in its exploration. It is the stuff of dreams.
I’ve gotten into a curious habit. If I’m life modelling on a weekday evening and there is enough time after my day job’s done, I like to pop home and change into comfortable clothes. This may seem odd given that for most of the next few hours I’ll be nude, but somehow it helps me to arrive feeling more relaxed… more myself.
When up to thirty artists are drawing my poses, unless they spied me before I slipped into a lightweight gown, they would have just my unadorned naked form as a template on which to ascribe character; there would be few visible tokens of my life story. Thus, their art becomes a way of dressing me in the new clothes of their own perceptions. It is one of the more fascinating aspects of being a life model.
I’m no stranger to the Monday night life class run by Adrian Dutton in Bethnal Green. It’s arguably the flagship of his weekly groups. Experience has shown me that when they are on form here, the artworks can be fascinating, distinctive, quirky and sublime. These artists know how to dress a model with vision, deftness and personality.
During the first hour I posed for 10 minutes, 1 minute, 2 minutes, 30 seconds, 3, 5, 10 and 25 minutes. After breaking for hot pasta, biscuits and tea, I followed with poses of 10 minutes, 3 minutes, 2 minutes, 1 minute, 30 seconds, 15 minutes that became 23, and 17 minutes to end. It was a good work-out; exhausting but never uncomfortable.
After re-wrapping in my casual rags, I returned for a look at the many works laid upon the floor for general admiration. The group had indeed been on good form this evening. Many offered me their individual thanks as they left, which was much appreciated. As I stepped out into the spitting rain of a dark humid night, I was a happy man.
I was in euphoric mood as I walked down Pentonville Road on my way to Candid Arts Trust. The centrepiece of my afternoon had been a successful nude photo shoot along with eight other models and photographer Matt Granger in busy Soho Square. Next up was my first evening of life modelling in three weeks.
Where does the time go? At St Pancras station I’d just bid farewell to my good friend and fellow model, Louise. We hadn’t seen each other since sharing poses and paints at April’s 50 Shades of Pathology with Art Macabre. Since then, through founding the Secret Drawing Club in Hythe with artist husband Nick, her own work had gone from strength to strength, whereas my life modelling had tailed off somewhat.
I needed to get back on track, and Candid Arts was just the right place. Pure drawing.
I started with four dynamic standing poses, each lasting 5 minutes. Artists surrounded me in a close circle, capturing my likeness in silent concentration. About half stood at easels, while the rest were seated. My next poses for them were 10 minutes kneeling, 15 minutes standing again, and 20 minutes seated on a high stool.
After a short break I saw out the evening with 40 minutes seated on the floor. This was the only pose that brought me some discomfort as I had hinged the wrist a little too far on my supporting left arm. There was no lasting harm done though, and I was pleased to see some excellent work inspired by the pose.
Whilst my life model bookings may have thinned over the summer months I’ve at least been able to diversify by participating in other arts projects. Life modelling remains my primary love, however, and I yearn to recapture the time when I was constantly getting two, three or four bookings every week. Until then, I shall savour days like this.
A ride on the number 22 bus took me to Leigh Beck at the far western end of Canvey Island. With ten minutes to kill, I had a look around. Some people were taking to the water at Island Yacht Club; anglers idly attended their lines at the seawall; a placard remembered an aircraft collision from 1944. Yet none of this had drawn me here. I’d come for the 24-hour charity marathon photo shoot at nearby Festival Studio.
Starting at 2pm on Saturday 15 August, the event was a fund-raiser for Alzheimer’s Society. It would be the first of its kind organised by the studio. Photographers paid a flat fee of £50 and could shoot for as long as they wanted during the 24-hours, having access to all manner of technical accessories and props throughout. All the models would be volunteers. Hot food was available at a small cost. All in all, a great idea.
I’d been invited by Amanda of Feel Good Painted, along with fellow models Mimi-Jo and Emma, to be body painted as superheroes and villains. Mimi-Jo would be Poison Ivy, Emma would be Wonder Woman, and I would be Venom. We met at 2:30pm to unpack everything we needed in the make-shift dressing room that had been assigned to us… the studio’s ladies toilet.
Happily the room was spotless and odourless. Little did we know, from that moment we would be working there for around seven hours. This may sound a long while but body painting is always a time consuming business, and Amanda would be working solo on three of us. She began with just face make-up for Mimi-Jo, enabling Mimi-Jo to get some early photos taken before more extensive decoration was applied.
© Stephen Roissy Photographer – model: Mimi-Jo
Next came my turn. I was to be painted on face, neck, torso – front and back – arms and hands. Use of black leggings meant the paintwork could stop at my waist. Even so, it took us fully four hours to complete just my upper-half, topped off with a black-painted swimming hat. We started by airbrushing around a spider template on my chest, then painting Venom’s gaping jaw on my face and neck.
More black paint was sponged upon my back and arms, and brushed round the giant white eyes on my face. The spider on my chest was painted white and then given an extra layer of ultraviolet paint. More UV white and colour was added to Venom’s eyes, teeth and lolling crimson tongue. My arms were given a scaly effect and, finally, long claw-like nails were glued to my finger tips. Time for a cup of a tea.
After a long patient wait, it was then Emma’s turn. She put on her Wonder Woman briefs and socks, her long curled hair and tiara, and – perhaps not part of the original costume – nipple covers. Amanda painted a red and gold corset with matching gold cuffs. When Mimi-Jo returned she put on green leafy nipple covers and briefs, bright red hair and boots, and was painted with ivy leaves to compliment her leaf tattoos.
© Feel Good Painted – model: Emma
We were ready. At last we could join in the shoots that had been going on all around us. It was now close to 10pm and getting chillier outside; we’d been semi-naked and on our feet for most of the day. My main discomfort, however, was the swimming hat that crushed my ears and head. After a 10-minute pause while a black backdrop was manoeuvred into place, our shoot began in earnest.
© Feel Good Painted – model: Emma
© Feel Good Painted – model: Mimi-Jo
We posed for at least a dozen photographers. Each took a turn to enter the shooting space and photograph us individually, in pairs and all three together. Wisely Amanda had deliberately not painted my torso solid black, which meant my body was more visible than it might otherwise have been against a solid black backdrop. I’d become quite fond of my claws and tried to make the most of them when posing.
© Jan Marshall Photography – model: Mimi-Jo
© Jan Marshall Photography – model: Emma
The set-up was changed and the photographers filed back one at a time to capture me under ultraviolet light. This presented them with a far greater challenge as the camera settings were unfamiliar and exposure times considerably longer, which in turn meant I had to remain perfectly still. Nonetheless some effective images were captured. This sequence of photos rounded off my evening.
© Charles Merry Photography
Two solar-powered shower bags had been provided for us by the studio, but with so much paint applied and with sun having long since set, it was sadly not practical to use them before going home. Instead we packed away and, whilst Mimi-Jo went the distance, Amanda, Emma and I decided to call it a night. I got a lift as far as the end of my street then walked the rest of the way home… still wearing my Venom face.
It wasn’t long after the event came to an end – at 2pm on the Sunday – that the first images were shared of other models who we had not been able to see working at the time. Some fine photography and make-up, styling and posing has already emerged. I’m sure many more strong works will be posted over the coming days. I apologise to models and photographers omitted from the tiny selection I’ve reproduced below.
© Jan Marshall Photography – model: Tina Massacre
© Jan Marshall Photography – model: Lou Heart
© Stephen Birch Photography – model: Mimi-Jo
© Stephen Birch Photography – model: David
© Charles Merry Photography – model: Layla Smith
The consensus is that a good time was had by all. Most importantly, however, more than a thousand pounds was raised for Alzheimer’s Society. If so much money can be raised for such a worthy cause, with so much fun and useful creativity enjoyed in the process, then long may this kind of event continue. Congratulations to everyone who made it a success.
The room was about ten square metres, had a stark low ceiling and red-cushioned seating that ran seamlessly around the length of each wall. It had no windows, but natural light entered through densely packed perforations the size of golf balls set in fifteen rows, and veiled with ‘The Lady and the Unicorn‘ printed silky material.
I had the impression this was an attempt to recreate the ambiance of an old Ottoman living room, albeit without the brass coffee pots, hookah pipes and, crucially, without the carpets. The floor was hard, bare, and painted battleship grey. It was where I was to life model downstairs at the Bourne & Hollingsworth Buildings – a plush all-day brasserie and bar in Clerkenwell, London.
This is the latest venue from which Adrian Dutton runs his regular groups. Adrian greeted me warmly when I arrived; he is a true gentlemen, a pleasure to work for. He offered one word of caution, however, suggesting I might want to pose wearing shoes as there might be fragments of broken glass on the floor. I could see what he meant, but said I would be careful, putting down a foam mat and sheet.
We stuck with the proven popular format for pose lengths. For the first hour I started with a 10-minute standing pose to allow time for latecomers to arrive. Next came the dynamic section – 2 minutes, 1 minute, 30 seconds, 3 minutes – after which, poses got steadily longer – 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minutes took us to an interval. Most artists then disappeared upstairs to get drinks from the bar.
After a break of about half an hour, we set about our second hour’s work in a similar vein. 10 minutes got us started again, then we quickened to 3 minutes, 2 minutes, 1 minute. My 1-minute pose was a full lotus position; upon unravelling I was astonished to see a small puddle of blood on my left thigh. It seemed I’d somehow slit the top of the fourth toe on my right foot… and I didn’t even feel it happen.
Adrian was more concerned that I was. As I moved on to a 5-minute standing pose, he dashed off to fetch some antiseptic liquid from his car. When the 5 minutes were up we could see I was still bleeding slightly more than was ideal so we took a short time-out to drown the toe in TCP and wrap it with tissue. One artist kindly offered a sticking plaster, which I made use of before heading home.
Following the brief interruption, we closed with a half-hour reclining pose. The show must go on. In excess of 20 artists were present; happily none were squeamish nor rendered incapable of continuing by the sudden unexpected appearance of a colour not anticipated in their palette selection for the evening. Their appreciation was very welcome at the end.
It had been a muggy evening. Even with a large modern bladeless fan to give us cool air, the modelling itself had been warm work. Yet I’d enjoyed working for this group as there seemed to be plenty of newcomers, both to Adrian and to life drawing in general. That in itself was enough to bring freshness to the room. I hope they’ll be enjoying lots more life drawing in the months ahead.
steve ritter 