{"id":1225,"date":"2018-07-04T23:22:18","date_gmt":"2018-07-04T23:22:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/davidvarnau.com\/blog\/?p=1225"},"modified":"2020-07-17T00:26:10","modified_gmt":"2020-07-17T00:26:10","slug":"ever-wonder-like-art-model","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidvarnau.com\/blog\/1225\/ever-wonder-like-art-model","title":{"rendered":"Ever wonder what it is like to be an art model?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Naked Truth About Nude Art Modeling<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201cHave you ever been intrigued by what it\u2019s like to be a nude art model?\u201d the email from my school asked<\/h4>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

By<\/em>\u00a0Robin Eileen Bernstein<\/em>\u00a0\/\u00a0Salon<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/h4>\n
June 30, 2018, 6:34 AM GMT<\/em><\/div>\n
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Over the years I\u2019ve scrutinized, squinted at and visually dissected every inch of easily more than 100 naked humans. That\u2019s because my passion is figure drawing, so I rack up a lot of hours staring at unclothed adults. Yet these men and women \u2014 old and young, all shapes, sizes and ethnicities \u2014 whose bodies are exposed from every angle, whose nude images grace my walls, remain unknown to me. I rarely know their names.<\/p>\n

Who are these people who bare all to a room full of strangers? How does it feel to pose under unforgiving lights as students mentally measure the distance from your clavicle to pubis? I often wonder what it takes to do a job\u00a0most know little about yet is essential to rendering the human figure in art.<\/p>\n

My first model was not nude and not even human. As a kid I relentlessly drew Astro Boy, my favorite TV cartoon character, which made me an anime fangirl decades before Pok\u00e9mon. By the time I took my first life drawing class at 17, I was hooked and, in the decades that followed, I took classes at various schools\u00a0when time allowed.\u00a0It\u2019s one of the few activities in which I truly feel like I\u2019m \u201cin the zone.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a routine: A model poses on a platform surrounded by students at easels or in chairs. It usually starts with a series of dynamic gestures, one-minute poses so named because the goal is to capture the movement. There might be several five-, 10- and 20-minutes poses in a typical three-hour session. After every 20 minutes, there\u2019s a break when the model dons a robe. If a pose continues beyond that, it\u2019s marked on the platform with tape so the model can resume the same position.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve asked myself if I\u2019d ever have the guts to pose nude for a class. Twice I\u2019d done it clothed \u2014\u00a0 once while pregnant \u2014\u00a0when the model was a no-show and volunteers were needed. And in my early twenties, a photographer friend who shot artsy black-and-white nudes of my roommate offered to do the same for me. I was game, but that was in the privacy of my home. In college I drew myself nude, again in private; it was homework, as I recall.<\/p>\n

Would I disrobe now, for a class? Depending on my mood and wine intake, the answer ranges from \u201csure, why not?\u201d to “not a snowball\u2019s chance in hell!” So\u00a0when I got an email from the Art Students League of New York where I now study, with\u00a0the subject line \u201cCurious about modeling for art? Learn all about it this Thursday,\u201d I opened it.<\/p>\n

\u201cHave you ever been intrigued by what it\u2019s like to be a nude art model?\u201d<\/p>\n

Why, yes! Yes, I have.<\/p>\n

\u201cModeling for fine art is challenging and personally rewarding work that requires professionalism, confidence, creativity, and a willingness to be vulnerable in a studio setting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Was I professional? Of course!<\/p>\n

Confident? Yes.<\/p>\n

Creative? Sure!<\/p>\n

Willing to be vulnerable? Uh, can I get back to you on that?<\/p>\n

I clicked reply and typed, \u201cWill attend.\u201d I had this crazy idea that I\u2019d model once and write about it. When I told four writer friends over dinner about my plan, their unanimous response was \u201cgreat idea!\u201d Which of course made me think, if this is such a great idea, how come none of you are doing it?<\/p>\n

When I told my boyfriend, his reply was somewhat less enthusiastic. \u201cYou\u2019re\u00a0really gonna do that?\u201d he asked, wide-eyed.<\/p>\n

This is not what you want to hear from the man who sees you naked, and I suggested as much.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, you look great!\u201d he clarified, and of course he\u2019d never dream of stopping me from doing what I want. What he couldn\u2019t fathom was why anyone would want to do it in the first place, especially at our age. I should note that we\u2019re both within spitting distance of 60.<\/p>\n

I knew I could be a good model. For the most part, I like my body, although I could do without the post-menopausal pounds that cling stubbornly to my hips and belly. It\u2019s a healthy and fit body that plays drums, does yoga and used to take dance. Naked after a shower, I\u2019d strike poses in front of the mirror that I knew students would like to draw because they were poses I\u2019d like to draw. In class I\u2019d watch the models and think, \u201cI can do that!\u201d<\/p>\n

And what better place to model than the League, with its all-star cast of famous artists who have studied or taught there since 1875, when it was founded? But when the model coordinator emailed me several openings for a model, I promptly panicked. It would not be for the same class I was taking as a student, but I was unnerved that people from my class also might be in the one I modeled for. I wanted an ironclad guarantee that I\u2019d know nobody there and would never see any of them again, ever, for the rest of my life. This clearly does not qualify as \u201ca willingness to be vulnerable in a studio setting.\u201d<\/p>\n

I turned to five models, most of whom had modeled for my class, who were happy to tell me about their job. One was Ivan, a 26-year-old financial software developer with a gentle smile and six-pack abs, who moved to New York nine years ago from his native Dominican Republic. It turned out we share an alma mater: Binghamton University, where I took my first life drawing class more than four decades ago. His jitters before his first nude modeling gig in the Fine Arts building, where I\u2019d spent so much time as a student, sounded familiar. \u201cI didn\u2019t want any of my friends to be in the class,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

And for good reason, like the time I walked into my life drawing class in the Fine Arts Building and did a double-take, because standing nude on the platform was my neighbor \u2014 a guy I\u2019d recently gone on a first-and-definitely-last date with and who 10 minutes earlier had given me a ride to campus. I\u2019m guessing by the look on his face that he was praying for a trap door to fall through.<\/p>\n

Brianna, a 29-year-old actor and dancer from the Midwest who requested a pseudonym to protect her privacy, said that she, too, wavered at first. Her roommate was a nude art model and Brianna found it fascinating. But when that roommate offered to help find her modeling work, cold feet trumped burning curiosity. \u201cI was like, whoa! Now I was faced with the reality of, can I do this?\u201d<\/p>\n

Ever since Adam and Eve were booted from their naked paradise, presumably in search of fig leaves, humans have had a fraught relationship with public nudity. Cultural norms vary, by generation or geography, from puritanical to ambivalent to let-it-all-hang-out. Trends come and go, the streakers of the 1970s making way for the naked yoga devotees of today. In this post-#MeToo era, people even debate if certain artwork should be banished from museums. In January, “Hylas and the Nymphs”\u00a0was removed from the Manchester Art Gallery<\/a>\u00a0in England to challenge its depiction of female nudity, prompting an outcry to have it returned.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve personally seen\u00a0these mores shift<\/a>. Once upon a time, nude sunbathing was common on certain stretches of New York\u2019s\u00a0Fire Island<\/a>\u00a0National Seashore. Years ago, my then-husband and I and our kids, then 9 and 7, walked from Robert Moses State Park to Kismet \u2014 a two-mile stretch \u2014 and realized halfway that we\u2019d need to walk through a clothing-optional beach. We did,\u00a0of course,\u00a0and my kids somehow still managed to grow up to be healthy well-adjusted young adults.\u00a0Regrettably,\u00a0conservative voices prevailed; five years ago authorities there began enforcing laws banning nude sunbathing.<\/p>\n

I wondered if anyone I knew would model nude, so I asked my Facebook friends: an admittedly biased sample of Baby Boomers and Gen Xers who, like me, spend far too much time online in migraine-inducing political debates or blithely posting pics of the sunset. Of the 38 who bothered to respond, nearly half the men and two-thirds of the women wrote variations of \u201cno, never, nope, not a chance, not my gig,\u201d and lest I misunderstand, one typed in all caps: NEVER NO WAY NO HOW.<\/p>\n

Another said, \u201cStand naked in front of people and have them interpret the way my body looks? That\u2019s a hard pass.\u201d Others said they \u201ccouldn\u2019t sit still long enough\u201d or were \u201ctoo insecure\u201d or lacked self-confidence or cited \u201creligious reasons (public nudity is a huge no-no)\u201d or lamented that they were too old, although one pragmatic soul said she\u2019d do it \u201cif it was a matter of life or death.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of the rest said who said they would (just over 20 percent) or hedged their bets with \u201cmaybe,\u201d there was one who, like me, would do it only if nobody knew her personally. \u201cIt would depend on the reputation of the art school,\u201d said another. And one said she\u2019d pose \u201cwaist up only\u201d while another who long ago had modeled nude warned against that: \u201cNaked is naked. Clothed is clothed. Partially clothed is seductive.\u201d A friend with cerebral palsy said she did it as an undergrad to help her grow more comfortable in her body (and for the money).<\/p>\n

And because no Facebook thread is complete without a comedian: LOL to the considerate guy who would remain draped because he\u2019s from \u201cthe first-do-no-harm school of modeling.\u201d And to the one who\u2019d do it if\u00a0Botero<\/a>\u00a0was instructing.<\/p>\n

If my survey determined that most of my friends would rather poke themselves in the eye with a sharp stick than pose nude, it didn\u2019t reveal what they might not understand about the job. Emily, 32 (she, too, requested a pseudonym for privacy), who started modeling as an undergrad in California for extra cash, feels the biggest misconception is that people think there\u2019s a sexual element when in fact \u201cit\u2019s so not sexual at all.\u201d\u00a0Similarly,\u00a0MacKenzie, a tall athletic 25-year-old from Connecticut who\u2019s been modeling in New York since last fall, thinks most folks see nudity as intimate, \u201csomething that most people don\u2019t want to share with anyone except their partner.\u201d<\/p>\n

The right word can avoid the wrong connotation. \u201cIf I\u2019m in the shower and I\u2019m washing my hair, I\u2019m naked,\u201d said long-time model Alan. But he said that\u00a0on the model stand, \u201cI\u2019m nude.\u201d A self-described rebel with a short grey beard, Alan, 65, started modeling in 1985 as a single dad in Georgia disillusioned with his business career and trying to redefine his life. On a whim, driving by the Lamar Dodd School of Art, he pulled into the parking lot and applied for work as a nude model. He\u2019s since turned it into a successful full-time job, modeling at several schools in New York, sometimes with his wife. He plans to retire this year.<\/p>\n

Several of these models mentioned fear of judgment \u2014 putting your every perceived physical imperfection on display \u2014 as a reason nude modeling is such a scary prospect. Yet I can attest that when I\u2019m drawing the unclothed human figure, the only thing I\u2019m judging is how good my drawing is. It\u2019s not remotely erotic. You\u2019re not thinking about their nudity. In fact, you\u2019re not thinking about them much at all. \u201cYou\u2019re basically reducing them to geometry,\u201d said Emily.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s right. We\u2019re taught to view the body as a mass of overlapping shapes: cubes, spheres, cylinders, pyramids and cones. We analyze angles and tilt. We find the centerline and identify front, top and side planes. We consider where light hits tangent to an arm or breast because that\u2019s where shadow begins. There\u2019s so much talk about the musculoskeletal system that I sometimes feel like I\u2019m in anatomy class.<\/p>\n

While we students grapple with the abstract challenge of rendering bodies on paper, these all-too-human models face the very real task of holding a pose. Contrapposto, for example, where weight rests more on one leg like Michelangelo\u2019s David, is very difficult to maintain. \u201cYou can really screw yourself,\u201d said MacKenzie. \u201cYou don\u2019t necessarily always know what\u2019s going to hurt your body.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brianna learned this early on. Modeling the very first time, she \u201cwas absolutely a wreck with nerves\u201d but within five minutes of her first pose, all she could think about was her foot, which had fallen dead asleep. \u201cThat was the last time I ever worried about being naked.\u201d<\/p>\n

To demonstrate how hard it is to hold a pose for 20 minutes, Alan suggests I pretend to squeeze a ball in my hand for five minutes because that stiffness and pain is \u201cwhat your entire body is going to experience.\u201d If he feels a muscle cramp coming on, he\u2019s learned to calm his body by going into what he calls \u201cZen master\u201d mode, slowing himself down to roughly five breaths per minute.<\/p>\n

But arguably more difficult is the discipline to be alone with your thoughts. \u201cI wish my mind would go blank so badly,\u201d said MacKenzie, who during poses will ponder her love life or her career or writes songs in her head for her band. The biggest surprise for Ivan was that it\u2019s more mental than physical. \u201cIn one 20-minute pose you can go through your whole \u2018to do\u2019 list, your five-year goal plans, your 10-year goal plans,\u201d he said, laughing. He learned that meditation and staying present in the moment keep him from zoning out. \u201cMy job is not to hold the pose; it\u2019s to\u00a0be\u00a0the pose,\u201d he said. If he thinks too much, he tends to nod off.<\/p>\n

I wondered, too, if the gender of the artist mattered, like it did for the woman who wrote, in reply to my Facebook survey: \u201cToo many negative experiences with men who pretend to have artistic souls. No desire to be objectified by any of them, even for the sake of their art. If it were all females in the class, I would consider.\u201d In fact,\u00a0a recent\u00a0New York Magazine\u00a0story asked<\/a>, in the wake of #MeToo, if it\u2019s \u201cstill an artistically justifiable pursuit for a man to paint a naked woman.\u201d But with all this uproar about the male gaze, why was nobody asking the opinions of those being gazed upon? After all, it\u2019s their naked image being turned into art.<\/p>\n

What these models told me, in essence, is that an artist\u2019s gender takes a back seat to the vibe a person gives off. Ultimately, says MacKenzie, it\u2019s not about male or female but about \u201cbeing professional, treating me with respect, making me feel comfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Emily will ask why most\u00a0artwork\u00a0in a gallery might be\u00a0by\u00a0men, she is rabidly anti-censorship and would never tell anyone they can\u2019t make the art they want to make. As for whether the male gaze is relevant to her job, she is indifferent. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t really affect my desire to model in any way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brianna, too, has never had a problem with men painting her. \u201cThey\u2019re looking at me through artist\u2019s eyes, and if I ever felt like they were looking at me sexually, I don\u2019t think I would be comfortable doing it,\u201d she said, adding that some of the most beautiful paintings of her have been done by men. \u201cWhat a shame that would be if they weren\u2019t allowed to create that.\u201d<\/p>\n

For them it\u2019s less about an unwanted gaze than an unwanted touch.\u00a0\u201cIf someone is getting too close to the modeling stand you almost can feel it,\u201d said Alan, describing the time a student grabbed his arm from behind to shift it and how he swung around and laid into the guy: \u201cDo you know how close you came to me just knocking you off your feet? Don\u2019t you ever, ever touch a model again!\u201d He is blunt: \u201cI\u2019m not a prop.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Emily explains,\u00a0your bubble of personal comfort expands when you\u2019re wearing less. She was more upset by a woman who physically moved her hand during a pose \u201clike I\u2019m a poseable store mannequin\u201d than the guy who annoyingly flirted but did not touch her during a break. Touching a model is never OK and fortunately, she says, most students are hyperaware of this. I know I am; I\u2019ll always give models wide berth during a pose. Those boundaries extend to cell phones, which at the League are prohibited during poses. And doors to the studio remain shut; if you\u2019re not a student or instructor, you don\u2019t belong there.<\/p>\n

And let\u2019s not forget that male models have their own biological vulnerability. One question Ivan hears a lot is if he ever gets an erection during a pose. \u201cThe answer is yes,\u201d he admitted, although he tries his best to stop it. Then again, Alan said that in\u00a032 years it\u2019s never happened to him during a pose. Over the years, I\u2019ve seen a partial erection in class only a couple of times. I always feel bad for the guy; I don\u2019t know what they\u2019re thinking but it usually fades fast. Besides, as Ivan points out, it\u2019s not something most students are looking at. \u201cArtists tend to leave the fingers and the toes for last, and most tend to leave the penis for last, too,\u201d he said. Or as Alan put it, \u201cI am portrayed in probably several thousand [of] pieces of art as a eunuch.\u201d<\/p>\n

But if I were to assume that the model is exposed and that I, the art student, remain hidden, Emily turned that on its head. \u201cPeople tend to ask if I feel exposed up there, but I feel like it\u2019s really the artists that are being exposed,\u201d she said, because each reveals a different interpretation of her. \u201cI get to see inside their heads.\u201d Like the time she was in a crappy mood and a student portrayed her expression as sweet and vulnerable.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, Emily\u2019s heritage is, as she describes it, \u201ca blend of Asian and African and Western European and every immigrant group.\u201d With indeterminate multi-racial features, she\u2019s like a Rorschach test for art students. \u201cYou have this idea in your head of how people see you,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd a lot of the time it\u2019s not what you think.\u201d She told me how sometimes black students might emphasize her lips or nose, and a Japanese student once gave her a painting he did of her. \u201cIt still looks like me,\u201d she said. \u201cBut the Japanese version of me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ivan, too, says that artists give a part of themselves to their work. \u201cThe drawing is the model, but at the same time, the drawing is the artist,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

But what I really want to know is how they summon that elusive capacity to be so, well, nakedly vulnerable. Perhaps it\u2019s because for these models the rewards of posing nude are many. When I asked MacKenzie if disrobing for a class is like the fear of jumping into an ice-cold swimming pool, she was mystified. \u201cIt\u2019s more like jumping into the air, like being able to fly or something, you\u2019re just very free,\u201d she said with obvious delight. Compared to her old bartending job, which she hated, modeling doesn\u2019t drain her and allows time for her artistic endeavors.<\/p>\n

Emily, too, would come home emotionally exhausted from her former job in sales. But after modeling, she feels creatively inspired. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t suck the energy away from the other things I want to do,\u201d she said. For Ivan, it\u2019s a way to stay connected to drawing, a talent he displayed as a child but never pursued. For Alan, it\u2019s a performing art; he\u2019s a muse who controls the energy of the room with poses that provide a narrative. It\u2019s this aspect of modeling that I find most compelling.<\/p>\n

What attracted Brianna to modeling is precisely how exposed it is, which is the very thing that terrifies me. She told me that she\u2019s\u00a0in recovery for eating disorders<\/a>\u00a0and body dysmorphia, which is when you focus non-stop on what you think are your physical flaws. By any standard, Brianna is beautiful, but she said there were times before modeling when she could barely look at herself naked in the mirror. \u201cAs someone with broken eyes, I needed to see myself through eyes of someone else,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Posing nude helped. \u201cYou\u2019re looking at what someone finds beautiful in you,\u201d she said, like when students tell her how fun it is to paint her skin. \u201cI would never in my life think my ghostly white skin is a plus!\u201d She now can look in a mirror and see things she likes about her body. \u201cThat was not ever something I thought was possible,\u201d she said. \u201cThis whole job is such a victory for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

The way these models talked about the perks of their job made me wonder why nude modeling wasn\u2019t a therapeutic requirement for anyone who\u2019s ever felt self-conscious, self-critical or just plain uninspired. Still, I couldn\u2019t shake my queasiness about doing it.<\/p>\n

Again I flashed back to college, this time to a clothing-optional beach where my friends and I spent a day together in the altogether, frolicking in our own naked Garden of Eden. But when I unexpectedly ran into a grad student I\u2019d been flirting with \u2014 who was wearing shorts \u2014 suddenly I was trapped in a real-life version of that nightmare where you go to school and realize you have no clothes on. My first instinct was to grab the nearest towel. But I knew that would only expose my embarrassment, so I didn\u2019t. And I suspect he felt exposed for being too uptight to strip down, which brought me back to Emily\u2019s observations about who is really exposed: model or artist.<\/p>\n

Will I draw the line at posing nude? I\u2019ll never say never, but thus far I\u2019ve stayed on the artist side of the easel. I keep bumping up against that last requirement: a willingness to be vulnerable in front of others. No matter how I parse it, I can\u2019t seem to get past it. I admit this with some relief. As a writer, I expose enough of myself on the page; some things I just don\u2019t want to share.<\/p>\n

But I\u2019m grateful to those who can and do share their bodies \u2014 Alan, Brianna, Emily, Ivan and MacKenzie, and the dozens of anonymous people, past and future, whose willingness to be vulnerable means that I can keep drawing lines on paper, in pursuit of turning the human body in art.<\/p>\n

By Robin Eileen Bernstein\/Salon\u00a0 in Alternet\u00a0 June 30, 2018.<\/em><\/p>\n

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The Naked Truth About Nude Art Modeling \u201cHave you ever been intrigued by what it\u2019s like to be a nude art model?\u201d the email from my school asked By\u00a0Robin Eileen Bernstein\u00a0\/\u00a0Salon June 30, 2018, 6:34 AM GMT Over the years I\u2019ve scrutinized, squinted at and visually dissected every inch of easily more than 100 naked […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n