4. Is the life-model getting off on it?
Art
‘…is she aware that I, personally, am staring at her nakedness? Furthermore, if she is aware, does she enjoy it? On the other hand, if she is not, am I violating her by stealing her privacy? This uncertainty… creates a frisson, a kind of exquisite tingle. …As a draw-er I am not supposed to think of the model as I did just then. Instead I am supposed to think of her as a form to be studied, a collection of surfaces and tones, just as a pumpkin is a collection of surfaces and tones. For her part, the model is expected to think of herself in this way also. To this end, she must virtually leave her own body and cut herself off from the reality of the room she is in. The easiest way for her to do this is to look away, perhaps even close her eyes, and daydream… …As long as the model doesn’t look back at me looking at her, it’s OK. After all, she is just an object isn’t she?’
The erotics of drawing by Doctor Dada
First published in Esperanto as ‘La Erotiko de Desegnado’ in Monato May 2001.
Life
I confess I have been known to have salacious thoughts while in-pose. You’ll read some of them in my autobiography A SMALL LIFE . My manager/ editor/muse Sue Vickerman (Sunday School teacher type, though has also life-modelled) says it is courting controversy to admit this and I might get a bad reputation. I just think I’m real. We’re naked, for god’s sake.
Why do we really do it? Actor and artist Steve Huison describes the life-modelling experience (he tried it) as being ‘ driven to find meaning, pleasure, discipline and an income through exposing everything external one has to offer… It’s a disciplined, artificial, numbing, tunnel visioning, hot/cold job… Art is bold, but rarely as bold as its nude subject ‘ (from Steve’s review of A SMALL LIFE).
And how do artists really relate to us? Artist and sculptor Annie Tempest wrote this to me: ‘ I use a model weekly and, apart from feeling uncomfortable on behalf of new models, I rarely give them much thought… When forced to break to let the model stretch and move around – something I hate doing I am sorry to admit – I do wonder sometimes how it is they are able to sit still for so long. I know I couldn’t do it. I am heartened to think that they may, like you, Suki, be writing poetry in their heads and be transcending time through creativity as much as the artist is. ‘
Love
llka and Anna had a blessing of their relationship in the Swedish Lutheran Church on Easter Day. Lilith gives me this info about my ex at tonight’s benefit concert for the Horton in Ribblesdale Women’s Centre. The benefit, in Langcliffe Village Institute, is mainly lesbians-of-a-certain-age plus two men. Since being post-Ilka I have been feeling post-lesbian. This event throws me back into my former social milieu. And this news, about which I am delighted, nonetheless makes me cry all the way home (well, to where I am temporarily cat-sitting) in the dark on my bicycle. Why? Because, not counting Secret Lover (which can only be little ecstatic windows), I am by myself.
It was so right for Ilka and I (17 years) to split. This itself was an act of love, as per Rikki Beadle Blair’s wisdom in my post last week.
My life is great. I do not have time to be in anybody’s pocket. Never again.
My emotions are completely irrational.
Living alone
Wednesday morning. I knock on the door of Website Genius’s little terrace (I model for him as a skills exchange: he built this website). I see his door handle is missing. Scuffle noises. Lock also knackered. WG comes round from the back and we notice the handles are off all along the street. I would have been rigid with terror if I had heard someone at my door in the night. Do blokes who live alone get terrified too? Drug-crazed psychotics probably don’t perceive gender as they bludgeon you to death for the £3.27 in your wallet.
Someone put in some proper hard graft in driving rain last night to unscrew door handles to sell on. For what? Couple of quid each? I have only recently moved to Bradford, out-priced by my beloved Yorkshire Dales. It is a tragi-comic city. I love it.
This week’s pic: PETER FORD
A regular at Doug Binder’s group at Dean Clough Mill, Halifax, Peter is in his seventies and was until recently doing ambitious cycle rides to European destinations. We have talked about bicycles and loneliness.
These were the 31 Responses from the original blog. They have been copied here to the newly revised website. However, unfortunately some of the original comments contained images that have sadly been lost. It is possible to add further comments below.
1. Helen Peyton says:
May 17, 2012 at 10:28 pm
Peter’s painting is beautiful, the colours are perfect!
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◦ SUKI says:
May 18, 2012 at 7:35 am
Hi Helen, yes I invariably like Peter’s ‘kind’ paintings. He used to be a portrait painter on the streets of Paris, maybe he learned that it is always necessary to create flattering images. Or maybe it’s just that he is a sympathetic person. I’ll pass on your compliment when I see him – as far as I know he doesn’t do emails/internet.
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2. Edie says:
May 18, 2012 at 10:05 am
This thorny question “is the life model getting off on it?” is perhaps one that is quite majorly overlooked when weighing up what is actually going on during a life drawing class…
I have often heard the same tired opinion from numerous sources of sadly chauvinistic males (their minds imagining only female nudes, naturally…) that regardless of the art involved, or any higher purpose, everyone (every man?), at some point during the proceedings, will inevitably deviate from the ‘inocuous’ task in hand to entertain pervy thoughts about the naked form sprawled in front of them, their innocent pencil momentarily held a little slack and loose within their sweaty grasp as they struggle to regain composure…
We have been so conditioned to view the naked body, certainly the naked body of a woman spread out before us, as a sexual object… have we not??
Was it for this reason then that my (now ex) boyfriend kicked up such a fuss when I said I wanted to start life modelling at the college where I had been a student and had taken classes myself? Was it his fear of my naked body being looked upon as something more than just a set of shapes to be studied? Was it the fear that members of the class or even staff running the show might have gained some sort of voyeuristic sexual pleasure at my nude and vulnerable expense? Or did his anxiety have its beginnings in the renegade thought at the back of his mind that his girlfriend, his possession, might actually enjoy taking her clothes off for other people? That the forbidden, denied excitement in this unusual context of nudity was really my own?
The goosebumps rising up and rippling across the naked pools of my exposed flesh might not really be because of the coldness of the room or the chilly draught running under the door, but from the little wet shivers of excitement, the skimming trails and traces of all those eyes, caressing the softnesses of my body with the staring touch of their thoughts…
I never did do the life modelling. But i have thought about this issue a lot. It forms the basis of one of my own short story ideas… and it actually came about from something you said in one of these very same life drawing classes, Suki, a fairly long time ago now…
By the way, I’m loving the blog x
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3. Hua Yu says:
May 18, 2012 at 9:12 am
Love the Audio part, two songs are great, voice is familiar. The above discussion is sometimes too heavy for me. I think everyone has his/her preference, and can change his/her preference. This is where I come to see different points, and enjoy it.
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◦ admin says:
May 25, 2013 at 8:04 pm
SUKI SAYS:
Hi Grace (Yu Hua) –
I am pleased you listened to my and Stuart’s songs on the Audio Suki page. I have been wondering whether this type of activity – life drawing – is so popular in China and also whether it gives rise to the kind of discussion we have about it here.
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4. Edie says:
May 18, 2012 at 10:11 am
Ha, hopefully that post didn’t sound overly provocative (or too long??) for a first foray into/onto your creative space Suki..
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5. Nic Carlyle says:
May 18, 2012 at 3:57 pm
I must admit, there’s never been anything about being naked in front of other people that has ever excited me, either in terms of the thought or the actuality. The female models I’ve talked to have never mentioned doing modelling except for the money, but then, I doubt they ever would have talked of any other motivation. As you have said, Suki, an unwritten taboo subject.
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6. Nic Carlyle says:
May 18, 2012 at 3:58 pm
And, yes, Peter’s painting is gorgeous: truly brightened my day this morning.
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7. Suki says:
May 18, 2012 at 5:10 pm
Thanks Edie for brilliant close-to-the-bone comments. So you think your boyfriend (now ex..!) suspected that you might be wanting to take up life modelling because you would ‘get off on it’…? And he wanted to police your thoughts? (And is that why you dumped him? Sorry, rhetorical question only!). In my forthcoming autobiography A SMALL LIFE I address this issue. What can really be known about the innermost thoughts of those in the life room… And actually, do we need to know? Does it matter if people are having their private sexual fantasies? Who is to know? Private thoughts are private thoughts. So long as there is nothing overtly sexual about any interractions in the room, it remains a safe and relaxed space for all present.
Is that really true that when I / other females modelled at college in the Art Foundation class where you and I met, the male students always got distracted – if only for some moments – by sexual thoughts? My first reaction is disbelief in my case, since I am old enough to be their mother and this ratty body under strip lighting surely holds zero interest compared to the erotic imagery that is a mere click away on everybody’s iPhone…
Having said that, and to reiterate my previous comment: who cares if they did? It’s maintaining a respectful dynamic in the room that counts. I too, as a model, may have my private thoughts, which if verbalised might break the odd taboo. But one doesn’t verbalise them so that’s fine. Thoughts are nobody else’s business.
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8. Nic Carlyle says:
May 18, 2012 at 7:50 pm
re “modelled at college in the Art Foundation class” This might be a bit off track, but is there still a distinct difference in the type of art classes. I remember adult education classes being dainty, leisurely affairs, and Art Foundation Course sessions being somewhere between boot camp and drawing hell for the students, presided over by malicious sadists. One young lady gave me extra inches where I had none and felt the twist of the tutor’s critical knife. I didn’t realise that a human face could take on that particular vivid shade of crimson. No, some life drawing sessions exude terror not eroticism (and, Suki, for some of us, the two are not on the same continuum).
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9. Suki says:
May 19, 2012 at 12:13 am
Are there any Art Foundation students out there? Or tutors? Is it a boot camp, as Nic says? Does anyone have anything to say?
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10. Suki says:
May 20, 2012 at 6:51 pm
Thanks for this Gavin. I noticed the comment on your blog that there’s not that much life modelling work up there in Cumbria; older models getting pushed out by new ones. There’s tons of work down here, and, I’m told, a shortage of younger male models.
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11. Gavin Pollock says:
May 20, 2012 at 6:12 pm
Interesting blog, I’ve linked it from mine; http://cumbrialifeclasses.wordpress.com/2012/03/23/fairies-in-switzerland/
Although mine is more just random nonsense and information on where to find life classes around Cumbria;)
Life models all vary, and I don’t think anyone can say they’re either getting off on it or not, really. There are those who will deny all eroticism in the art class, which might be true for them, but it can’t speak for everyone. For myself, it is different drawing an attractive woman, or modeling for one, than it is drawing an older bloke or modeling for one. I don’t stop thinking about sex just because I’m in artist mode or model mode.
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12. Gavin Pollock says:
May 20, 2012 at 8:44 pm
It’s improved a lot in Cumbria lately. But it’s still a very spread out county.And some of the older models aren’t so web savvy so miss out on some classes because of it, which is a bit of a shame.
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13. Suki says:
May 23, 2012 at 10:44 am
Interestingly I just had a call from a male model with whom I have in the past co-modelled who wanted to chat about the site/the discussion, which he is enjoying. He brought up what is I guess the biggest deterrent to men to being models, which is the possibility – o calamity! – of getting an erection. His philosophy is that if it happens, it happens, and he finds it liberating – in this event – to Keep Calm and Carry On (my paraphrase of what he said!). He said he would not dare to respond to this thread himself, so I am putting this up for him anonymously. I feel myself to be very liberated when I hear about what a hurdle life-modelling would be for many others; when I am reminded of how different I am, being this comfortable with my body. But I think I am pipped to the post by this guy. I just don’t know how it all works really, that male anatomy thing, the uncontrollableness of it. I wonder whether, if I were male, I would manage to be as liberated as Mr X.
Thanks for your most recent post, Edie. I call myself a bowl of fruit a real lot. And a lump of lard. It helps bring it all down to the cold daytime mundanity of it. Like modelling with Gardener’s Question Time on in the background. No sex here, we’ve got wellies on.
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◦ Nic Carlyle says:
May 23, 2012 at 11:22 am
“Like modelling with Gardener’s Question Time on in the background.” LOL. And stopping your courgettes from getting too large. ROFL.
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14. Edie says:
May 23, 2012 at 9:51 am
yes i think that is my basic point at the bottom of all this..whatever role is being played, either that of artist, model, tutor, whatever, sometimes you might find your mind occasionally or accidentally flicking to thoughts of sex or eroticism due to the nature of what is in front of you, however mildly or briefly..and not wildly and with barely contained excitement or for prolonged periods of time during the class, we all have our job to do of course..and are not perverts?!
Everyone is different though and who knows what is going through someone’s mind at any one time..but I for one cannot stop strange thoughts of all shapes and sizes running through mine, especially in such an interesting space as a life drawing class, and I always wonder what is happening in other people’s brains or bodies during this quite fascinating experience too..
To answer your question Suki, I’m not sure as to how much other people in the class at college were musing on the erotic nature of the naked form before them, I am fairly confident in saying that sex in some form will have crossed some other people’s minds at least.
And our classes were thankfully always very laid back and wonderful, or so I thought as an artist..perhaps you felt differently as our model?! Our tutor had a way of encouraging liberal thought as well as creating a liberating environment to produce our work in. Maybe this was my downfall… Or why my boyfriend didn’t really want me to model, so that my body would not be seen by my male tutor and various other young men.. We did actually discuss it quite a lot and in actual fact my argument was usually based on the completely desexualised or asexual nature of the life drawing room, that sex did not come into the equation, the naked form before you was to be viewed as a set of shapes, light and shadow, about as sexual as a bowl of fruit in a still life…ha.
I do think sex manages to filter its (sordid and filthy and unwanted:)) way into a great many things..we just don’t always want to admit it.
I think its pretty natural really, like fruit
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◦ Justyn Tandy says:
May 23, 2012 at 12:21 pm
Very lovely you thought so much of the classes Edie. Hope all is well with you
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▪ Edie Gardner says:
May 23, 2012 at 1:11 pm
You know how much I liked them Justyn!! College was a treat not a slavish chore
I’m ok thankyou, how are you??
I’m in Skipton next Tuesday if you want me to call at college to give you my sketchbooks back that I have kept for a rather undue length of time…
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• Justyn Tandy says:
July 1, 2012 at 8:12 pm
So sorry Edie I missed your response to my message for some reason. I thought it odd you didn’t respond and you obviously did! Obviously quite long since that Tuesday but no matter! Glad you did find it a treat, how is it all going? Be nice to meet up for a chat before too long.
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◦ Edie Gardner says:
July 9, 2012 at 9:08 pm
Hi Justyn,
yeah don’t worry about it, I know from experience that you are rather busy around this time of the year..and at most other times too actually.
Yeah it is not going too bad..not sure what it really is though..it is going alright though i suppose. How about you? Yes it would be nice to see you and chat. Perhaps in the not too distant future. I am very rarely round your neck of the woods now though
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15. Edie Gardner says:
May 23, 2012 at 1:02 pm
Yes! The issue of erections also sprang up (ha ha) when I was thinking about this whole subject..
Arousal is much better concealed within a woman’s physical being than that of a man.
Also, the thought of struggling with unbridled physical or carnal urges is linked more with the male sex or male way of being rather than the female, in quite an animalistic way. Our minds and bodies are thought of as being programmed to respond very differently to stimulus by way of our sex.
But SEX is something that steers us all really, regardless of our gender or anything else.
The human body is a minefield of issues, a thought provoking trap.
Myriad thoughts and feelings burst forth before a naked human form..
Invariably though, sex is the link in the chain through which everything is held together.
Our bodies are vessels for procreation.
And it is only through the sexual use of them that we exist within them at all or continue to further our existence in this physical world..
Sex. It runs like the quiet industrious vein, the faint blue pulse under life’s thin veil of skin.
The denial of sex as a fundamental, albeit subconscious, driving force in all that we do in life seems kind of futile..
Suki, I applaud your ability to be comfortable with your own nakedness and to want to explore and discuss openly and freely all sorts of thoughts and questions that being naked brings with it, particularly in the context of the life drawing sphere, as there are plenty that come up, to my mind..
Perhaps being naked in body inspires the shedding of other things, like the inhibitions one might have in the communication of certain ideas. Not wanting to cloak or cover the secret thoughts you have inside. Gaining the freedom to bare yourself inside and out.
Nakedness is liberating! It is stripped of pretence.
It is honest.
Thing is, I laugh when I think of you calling yourself a piece of fruit..
Fruit is pretty sexy really..when you think about it..
Oh no, here we go again
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16. Edie Gardner says:
May 23, 2012 at 1:05 pm
Courgettes. Not strictly a fruit. But still pretty sexy?!?!
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17. Tessie Humble says:
May 23, 2012 at 2:03 pm
I think what I thought when I read the blog has pretty much already been voiced by others. The idea of thinking about sex- directly or indirectly- during life modelling class, as the model or the artist, is hugely taboo. But how much can we control our thoughts? And should we have to control our thoughts, when they are not harmful or sleezy? Sex, is not a sleezy thing (unless when people make it sleezy) so if slight thoughts, mental twinges, enter you mind, can that be a problem?- if they are not being vocalised of course! I think (for me anyway) that it is rare that they do- after several hours of intense studying of a form, or staring at wall- most sexual or taboo thoughts are not so interesting. Though, Im sure they crop up for some people occasionally, which in my mind is fine. As long as the environment stays safe and comfortable, then lets not pretend to deny the fact we are all human, well animals, essentially.
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18. Tessie Humble says:
May 23, 2012 at 4:33 pm
By the way, very interesting comments indeed, I was a wee bit worried that they would stay along very safe lines or be overly feminist (assuming, i think correctly, that most life models are female, and feminist isnt really the right word I was looking for- I suppose I mean anti-male) – that sexual thoughts and life modelling/drawing never go hand in hand and anyone that thinks otherwise is sleezy. But there were some very honest and liberating responses. And the next topic sounds even more interesting I think, looking forward to it :0
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19. Lois Brothwell says:
May 23, 2012 at 8:12 pm
As I see it, an artist’s goal when drawing or painting the human body is to produce an erotic and spiritual depiction – because the body is erotic by design and a person, spiritual; and any artist worth their salt responds forcefully to both factors.
Although the grappling with perspective bludgeons to death all sexy thoughts in life class initially, once it is mastered, sensual details and spiritual essence rush to the fore. But it’s all a healthy, positive and electrifying process – not pervy – and fuels creativity.
As the model provides the privilege of scrutinizing the miraculous engineering of the human body naked in pose at length, the artist/student is always placed firmly in submission to the model.
Is the model getting off on it? I rather hope so. Afterall, the model’s repertoire of poses exhilarates the artist/student with the intellectual and creative challenges of capturing contours convincingly and that crowning glory – the model’s spirit. The rewards to the model should be more than just financial.
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◦ Suki says:
May 23, 2012 at 9:27 pm
Thanks Edie and Tessie for describing the real true dynamics with barefaced honesty. And THANK YOU LOIS for this glorious affirmation of the whole life room scenario. I love what I do for a whole range of reasons: in essence yes I agree that there is creative fuel being produced in the life room, it’s like an oil field. An energy source. Which leads me on to an inevitable rave about my next Big Project – my 2013 project – which is called THE LIFE ROOM and will be a portrait of about twenty life rooms I currently work in, and of the people in them, and what they are really thinking and doing. In collaboration with a great photographer, this will be a coffee table book that not only captures the scene visually but will have many short texts representing the voices that I am hearing in this blog; what they are thinking, feeling, and struggling with. Plus some of the amazing drawings and painting will be reproduced. And of course it will have a ‘me me me’ Suki column too. I always want to tell my story…
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◦ Bea says:
June 21, 2012 at 8:33 pm
What an interesting thought Lois. Being a trans-gender model, I wonder whether my body is erotic? I wonder how the artist/student responds to it? Never crossed my mind before. Be interesting to know if they have, as a goal, to produce an erotic depiction. Will they feel any sensuality? Wow! A whole new perpective to my modelling.
I certainly do ‘get off on it’, and find that since my transition I get many more rewards, when posing, from my external and internal visualisations.
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▪ Suki says:
June 21, 2012 at 9:44 pm
Lois – I love your declaration of the body as erotic and the person as spiritual, and how these facets of the model are present in the life room. They are certainly denied as being present by some. In the end it’s different strokes for different folks, isn’t it? So many different perspectives on and experiences of the life-drawing endeavour.
Thanks too for your response, Bea. I have an assumption that as a trans-gendered woman you must be hyper-aware of how the life-room’s occupants are reacting to you/ interacting with you as a woman.
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20. Gavin Pollock says:
May 24, 2012 at 1:23 pm
I was once followed to a life drawing class by a girlfriend, to make sure I wasn’t enjoying drawing the female model too much! This was in Japan though, where the idea of life drawing isn’t so well established.
Women are able to let their minds wander a lot more than men, yes! The erection issue has been covered numerous times on model forums, so I don’t think there’s any merit in discussing it too much. I can understand your model friend’s caution in not giving his name, though. I think all life groups and artists probably have their own views as to how acceptable it is; if it’s an established and trusted model, then we all know that it’s physically possible and might not even be down to anything sexual. I’d rather not see it as an artist, thanks all the same, and certainly not as a model!
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21. Lois Brothwell says:
May 25, 2012 at 6:08 pm
Suki, you’re far too gracious about my little “contribution”, but thank you. Incidentally, I meant “technical” challenges, not “intellectual”. Quel faux pas!
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22. Stuart H says:
June 28, 2012 at 11:59 pm
A life model posing is not really rampant exhibitionism along the lines of the dreadful reality TV shows we are afflicted with. Maybe sometimes it’s less about “getting off”, and more about getting by.
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23. Suki says:
June 29, 2012 at 9:18 am
Hi Stuart! Thanks for bringing this back to the cogent point – the bottom line – which is that this is my daily bread.
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24. Bea says:
June 29, 2012 at 12:13 pm
Yes Suki, I do get hyper-aware of the artist’s reaction to me when posing, and I do this by external visualisation. This is what I meant by “getting off on it” ….so not in a sexual way, but able to appreciate my posing from the artist’s perspective, and since transition I have found that my poses are much more exciting to view.
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25. Dave Thomas says:
May 30, 2013 at 10:07 pm
A friend was at a life class at her college in London when the life model’s schlong ( such wonderful names there are for todgers aren’t there?) rose gracefully, stayed erect for some minutes and then just as gracefully descended. All this and the students kept drawing with all seriousness and the model kept still and gave no sign that (quite) some of his blood supply had gone elsewhere. Was he getting off on it, having a happy thought or just winding up the students?
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26. Suki says:
May 30, 2013 at 10:10 pm
I am so pleased not to have a todger, Dave. They throw up so many issues.
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◦ David Thomas says:
June 1, 2013 at 6:26 pm
The very idea of todgers throwing up issues is going to keep my mind in a turmoil for days.
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27. Suki says:
June 1, 2013 at 7:07 pm
Eugh. Ee-u-ch. I had not noticed my pun, Dave.
By the way, your blog is SO much more erudite than mine.
Ladies and gentlemen, to discuss Art without all this silliness about willies and such, visit artist David Thomas‘s blog EvolveRevolve.
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28. Lois Brothwell says:
June 5, 2013 at 3:18 pm
But that chap’s erection probably did the life class a world of good – as if he were making the point (pun intended) that:
“Hey, I’m not just a collection of static body parts! There’s a brain in my head and blood coarsing through my veins, and in case you’ve all forgotten that – CHECK THIS OUT!!”
Bet it kicked some life into everybody’s drawings.
I think only the best life-models do the ‘external visualisation’ that Bea describes which can be so inspirational for the artist. Suki does it too. And of course the model ‘gets off on it’ because he or she becomes more active in the creative process. But it’s more to do with job satisfaction than… “liquefying loins” (Jilly Cooper).
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29. Suki says:
June 5, 2013 at 3:48 pm
Thanks Lois and everybody for all the commentary re nakedness and bodily functions.
Four years into this life-modelling lark, I’d just like to share a rare image with you, captured by superlatively brilliant life-inker Jane Fielder in a fleeting moment at the end of a modelling session I carried out at her studio-home (Jane’s whole house is her studio).
Just as I was leaving the premises, Jane managed, in a matter of seconds, to capture my image in a way hitherto never achieved by any other: not only was I wearing clothing but I was also on my folding bicycle… See below.
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◦ Lois Brothwell says:
June 5, 2013 at 8:11 pm
Jane should be made official artist for ‘Le Grand Depart’ to be held in Yorkshire next summer.
I can’t imagine anyone being able to capture the cyclists and the whole spirit of the event more wittily and expressively than her.
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▪ Jane Fielder says:
June 5, 2013 at 8:23 pm
I’m loving this!
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◦ Nic Carlyle says:
June 5, 2013 at 9:35 pm
Fantastic piece!
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▪ Jane Fielder says:
June 6, 2013 at 2:11 pm
Feeling really poorly at the moment, won’t make it to the session tonight Suki,these positive comments have so cheered me up. Thank you, Suki, Lois and Nic
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30. Francis says:
August 4, 2013 at 3:11 pm
Having spent a fair bit of time on clothes-optional French beaches I came to the conclusion that, in my own case at least, women weren’t particularly interested in ‘looking’, in fact many will look away or simply ‘not see me’. Hence I concluded that for many (French?) women male nudity is no big deal, which is fine, quite relaxing and liberating I think. It could simply be that I am nothing special to look at (though by no means hideous!), but again the same conclusion. Either way, I don’t see how I can therefore ‘get off on it’ as I’m not sure there’s anything to be got off from.
Is there a gender discrepancy here? Are men more prone to looking lasciviously at females so that the latter then have something to get off from? (I am only considering heterosexual situations here, not out of any prejudice but simply lack of knowledge.)
On the odd occasion that I have tried (badly) to do life drawing, I have sometimes found the female model attractive, but have still concentrated on the work in hand. I don’t remember noticing any ‘getting off on it’ reaction on the part of the model, though it could of course have been there, but well hidden.
As I think most of us will know famous artists have been known to have more than a simply artist-muse relationship with their models, though we might not always know which came first, the chicken or the egg.
Going back a while to when I perhaps still slightly questioned ‘what people might think if they knew’, I modelled for a large student group and was I think reassured to see that also participating was a university chaplain; that somehow made it ‘ok’. I think a background of family prudishness can take a while to shake off!
If I were to find that female artists did get some sort of pleasure from looking at my form beyond the strictly artistic I think I would be slightly flattered by that, though I don’t think it would go beyond that. If it were male artists having such pleasure I would find that very odd. Perhaps it really is better not to know what is going on in anyone’s head.
Regarding a partner’s reaction, my wife finds it odd that I do what I do, but she accepts it. I show her any photos I take of images of me and she seems to be quite cool with that, she knows there is ‘nothing going on’. Going back many years when my then wife (now ex) talked about life modelling herself I think I was quite horrified and disapproving, but that was before I addressed such issues myself. In the event she never pursued it. Were my current wife to want to life model I think I would be much more relaxed about that, though I would still want to know she was ‘safe’.
And with regard to the old chestnut of an unwanted erection coming up (sic), it hasn’t happened to me, though I think I did worry about it early on as it is mentioned in discussions so frequently. These days I think it is not an issue. Were it to start to happen I guess I would feign cramp or something and take time out.
What I am aware of is that RAM seem to make a big deal about how unprofessional it would be for a male model to succumb, though I’m not quite sure why it is frowned upon so. Here is what I find very odd though, RAM now promote hen drawing parties and are quite ageist about it. The male model must be young, fit, etc., but I have read that many hen parties expect their male model to give them an erect pose as the finale – or is this just an urban myth? If it is true then where do RAM stand on this?
One thing that interests me as a model is one-to-one life modelling, though I have to say that I would be much more comfortable with a female rather than a male artist. Why I’m not sure, somehow less potentially threatening to me though I dare say that will be found a peculiar viewpoint. But we are trying to be honest on here, aren’t we?
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◦ Suki says:
August 4, 2013 at 6:38 pm
Thanks for your thoughts Francis.
Hmm. Hen parties. And stag parties, I guess.
I think they inevitably must employ glamour-models for those occasions, because it’s about sex and fun, not about the challenge of life-drawing / learning to draw. Which is fine. There’s a spectrum of modelling employment. Life-modelling is at one end.
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31. Francis says:
August 5, 2013 at 12:15 am
But don’t you think RAM are taking a somewhat odd and contradictory stance? They say:
Under hen parties:
‘They [models] are answerable to The Register of Artists’ Models and have to adhere to our strict code of professionalism and conduct… .’
‘You can also rest assured that all our models are young and fit – have a look at the photos of our hen parties! Some of our competitors are in their 50′s.’ (ageist!)
Code of Conduct 4 (iv):
RAM members are nearly always suspended from the Register following a complaint about this [erection].
Are we to take it that it is assumed that no one attending a hen party would complain about a model having a (deliberate?) erection? What if the model doesn’t, could there be a complaint about that?
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◦ Suki says:
August 5, 2013 at 8:16 am
This is certainly contradictory, as you say, Francis. I don’t like “all our models are young and fit”. And I don’t like the prudery of “complaint about an erection will lead to suspension of a model from our list”. There seems to be a lack of clarity about the legitimate though rather different end of the nude modelling spectrum from life-modelling, which is glamour modelling. The way a model relates to a group at a hen/stag party is an entirely different dynamic (appropriately so) from the life-room dynamic. The rules are different. Nothing wrong with that, but as I say, lack of clarity. An intelligent/intuitive model might well work in both contexts, and adapt accordingly.
I am not a member of RAM. I can’t thoil it, but if I could, I would find this inconsistency a reason not to be a member anyway.
And I am not so uptight anyway, as a model, that I want all this regulating and safeguarding. Working unclothed is not, as far as I am concerned, in any sense whatsoever “unsafe”.