Spirited Bodies follow-ups Part 2: All The Rest Is Drag

It was serving tea and biscuits that had got me into modelling. Who’d have thought? Here I was l cast amidst all these artists and naked bodies, seemingly devoid of shame. It wasn’t meant as an apprenticeship but it served me well in the end.

People had hinted that I might give it a try and artists were always asking if I modelled, as I proffered fig rolls and chocolate digestives, but I always slightly recoiled when I thought about the idea – I mean really, me? Whilst I was no stranger to acting before a crowd of unknowns, how could I do the same with no clothes on? Then I thought, hmn, but on the stage you are still naked out there, performing, acting, being. Wasn’t modelling just the same?  Wasn’t it also a performance, conveying a look, a feeling an emotion just as an actor would? The only difference was the lack of costume.

My biggest hurdle was that I had forgotten how to love my body. The possible reconnection with it that I felt modelling would bring excited me. I would say it was my primary reason at first for doing it.  The world of men has changed in my lifetime. Now we have make-up for men, semi nude images of men on giant billboards are commonplace and body fascism has crossed over from gay club to straight gym.  As a gay male I can say that I felt this more acutely than most and had ended up embarrassed of my body.

I don’t know if I would have become a model without the assistance of Spirited Bodies, events like theirs help you find your feet and even had I not liked it, then at least I’d given it a go.  I arrived at the gallery at the allotted hour, making a couple of casual jokes to friends of mine that I’d got involved, about member shrinkage (as well as the opposite problem). It calmed our nerves a bit. But no time for that, suddenly it seemed we we’re on, cue lights! Then all done, exhilarated a touch bewildered, we models swapped stories in the changing area – this time no bashfulness. We were naked but we weren’t. It all seemed so normal.

That must be some six months ago now. I still remember the initial advice we got at that event: understanding what poses can be maintained comfortably and what can’t, understanding the power you have being the naked one, and working with the artist. I still get it wrong on the poses of course, but it’s all the fun of the fair. You learn from experience. I even surprised myself with how knowledgeable and experienced I sounded when meeting artists for the first time.

As Ru Paul once said: ‘we’re all born naked, all the rest is drag’. We talk of being ‘naked’ as a metaphor and it has only been through modelling that I have truly understood it. To remove your clothes to a public audience makes you feel vulnerable, but this vulnerability has helped me gain strength. I’ve all but lost my feelings of my body letting me down. It’s funny, I don’t know when I first noticed it but I suddenly thought that it didn’t matter what I looked like. I started to like myself from the inside out. The drag that we wear because of convention is just that. My experience of modelling and now being a professional model has literally stripped away much of my negative bodily associations. I always knew that modelling would do this for me. I just didn’t realise how much.

Male models posed with a horse sculpture at Spirited Bodies 3

Warming Up For A New Event

As 2012 opens Lucy and I are preparing for an altogether new event; the next Spirited Bodies will be in a new venue and with different artists. We have been very fortunate to work with artists of the Hesketh Hubbard organisation at The Mall Galleries for our first 3 events, and now an invitation has come from elsewhere. The new people are ‘London Drawing’ and they organise a great number of life drawing classes and events across London and further afield in the UK. They will be hosting Spirited Bodies 4 at Battersea Arts Centre on Saturday 11th February with a morning and an afternoon session; this is part of their ‘Drawing Theatre’ series.

The style of event will be more experimental than before and we will likely occupy various spaces in the expansive BAC. This allows us to try a few new things which we’ve been thinking about for a while. Firstly we can give models a break between each pose, where previously we tried to stick to the expectation of artists at The Mall who are used to professional models who shift from one pose to the next with very little stretching time in between. This should be much more suitable for models trying this for the first time. It gives them a chance to realign their bodies after the achy stillness that may arise.

Secondly we may be able to do a far greater proportion of quick poses, where before we were trying to conform more to a standard requirement. Quick poses range from 30 seconds in length to about 10 minutes – they can even be one long continuous slow motion movement. Again this is appropriate for new models and indeed those who just want to try it the once as staying still is not easy! It does mean the model has to think on her feet more though, and some people prefer to find one pose and stick to it for longer. This faster pace is in keeping with the less conventional practices of the ‘Drawing Theatre’. I have modelled for them many times and it is more fun and performance like than a usual life modelling session. There is often movement involved, sometimes costume and a set, and always a theme.

from the last 'Drawing Theatre' with Marega Palser dance theatre company

With different rooms available to us we can offer a women-only space (as in models, as the artists are mixed), a mens’ space, a couples space and perhaps a mixed space. It will depend on the requirements of our models, and the spaces given to us. Similarly, according to the models we find, a theme may suggest itself, and in this new context we are open to far more possibility.

drawing from 'Drawing Theatre' with Hens Teeth Theatre Company, November 2011
A model at the Hens Teeth 'Drawing Theatre'

If you have an idea to try modelling and February 11th suits you, then please get in touch. While the drawing takes place from 11-1pm and from 2-5pm, we will have time before each of these sessions to prepare models and introduce everyone. In addition I usually meet models in advance of the day if possible so that everything is clear.

We would like models to stay for either or both of the sessions as they prefer, understanding that 2 or 3 hours is plenty for a first time.

from The Wild Bride 'Drawing Theatre' with Kneehigh Theatre

The Drawing Theatre is a tutored life drawing workshop and many materials are provided, so that artists create images in a variety of media, from charcoal and pastel to collage and ink.

Spirited Bodies follow-ups: Part 1, a model from the Summer event speaks of the changes in her since modelling

I never had any expectations of life modelling – I didn’t know if I’d love it or hate it; whether I’d feel shy or be unable to stay still for any amount of time. I had no idea of what to expect. I sort of just closed my eyes and dived in.

I began to look in to life modelling a little more than 6 months ago. I was beginning to explore my own creativity and love for the arts. I have a deep respect for artists and, though I doubt my ability to hold a pencil, I wanted to be artistic in my own right, in a way I thought I could.

I used to be a gymnast, I have an awareness of my own body and how my body expresses my emotions – through illness when I’m stressed, in my expressive or closed body language in different situations – but that awareness did not automatically equate to a consciousness, and rarely to control.

Coincidentally, at the same time as I was beginning my own creative journey and recognition of my body’s expressive capabilities, I was feeling dissociated from the way my body looked. I felt unattractive, my body had changed since being a teenager – I was beginning to look more like a woman and I felt betrayed. What do you mean I won’t have abs of steel unless I exercise! Why do my curves have to wobble?! And where did that bottom come from?! I knew I was still petite, I just am that build but there was no denying my body was new to me and some how I ‘d have to learn to love it, or I’d be in for years of hell trying to regain my teenage physique.

Meanwhile, I had been in touch with an artist and tutor from Kingston University who put me in touch with you, Lucy. I decided, what better way to reconnect with my body, to regain control and accept my new body than to take my clothes off in front of a bunch of strangers! I jumped in.

From my warm welcome at Spirited Bodies and my initial meet with Esther, I was immediately put at ease. Now all I’d have to do was undo my robe…

Any trepidation I felt before stripping off disappeared the moment my robe hit the floor. This was something I could do and damn it, I would work and concentrate as hard as I can to let these artists know a story about me.

This idea of modelling being an opportunity to tell a story about me is something I keep coming back to. Each session I model I find a theme emerges from the first pose. That then dictates what kind of pose will follow and so on, until I have re-enacted (or just acted) frozen images from previous (or fantasy*) experiences. A whole session allows the kind of freedom of expression I rarely get verbally. I use the language of my body to reconnect with my own thoughts, feelings, memories and try to send those stories out to any artist who might be ‘listening’.

There are times I leave a session feeling, though exhausted, rejuvenated. It is a cathartic, cleansing experience.

I seek to connect with an artist in a non-verbal way where they hear my story and it stirs something in them and they draw accordingly. A synching of experience.

I am a singer and this same ‘synching’ can happen at times musically too. This is when you get the ‘buzz’ and you can feel it coming off all the musicians performing too. There have been times where I’ve come close to this experience through modelling and it is that feeling that I continue to seek. That drives me to concentrate and work hard at each session and to hope for a commission with an artist I connect with in such a way. I would love to be part of a working-relationship to achieve a picture which is an insight into both the artist and the model. Achieved by collaboration.

My preferred length of pose is about 20-30 minutes – at this time I ache enough to have to fight for it, not so much I begin to hate it! I find it is long enough to both test and train my concentration on that ‘tableaux’ that is in my head.

*I want to make a point about life modelling being very removed from a sexual nature for me. I try to express my inner ‘Gaia’ rather than, well you know. I feel nakedness has an innocence about it that is too often forgotten and yes sometimes in nakedness we are sexual beings but I try to avoid being provocative as it’s not something I’m comfortable with. I feel the need to raise this because so many friends (even artists!) think that it is of a sexual nature. So far the one with the greatest understanding, who I told of my ambitions most fearfully, has been my Mum! She is even considering having a go herself.


Guestblog: ‘When Atlas Dropped the World’ by Lucy Saunders

It was just another day, nothing special, Atlas said.  After all these years, I’d got the job sussed – I could do it with my eyes closed, and frequently did.  It’s a matter of resting individual muscles, one after another, without losing position – if you look, you won’t see me do it, relaxing and then tensing.  The trick is to get all round the body, be fair, don’t miss one muscle group out, even ones that don’t seem obvious.  Just because a muscle isn’t telling you its in pain doesn’t mean it is capable of staying in the same place all the time.  Muscles are designed to be various, to change their state from extended to relaxed.  So I have to do that within a pose that requires my stillness.  Of course I do move a bit, but very slowly, you’d probably never notice.  Its not like I do big stuff – I never change the side my head is under the world, for instance.

The original pose was something that came naturally to me, I do wish now that I hadn’t left the toes on the foot on the extended leg touching the floor – because that’s where the vulnerabilities come in, where you stop the blood in its journey and create pain.  Its any point that bears weight eventually.  Even if you were standing straight up on the ground, normally, not carrying anything, eventually your feet would talk with pain until you moved.  We are naturally moving creatures – and the situation I was in was an unmoving one, for all time.

Meditation helps.  You send your mind elsewhere, detach yourself from your thoughts, feel the universe within, the inner darkness like the space between stars.  Time doesn’t have much of a meaning in a situation like that.  Walter Benjamin was right, boring tasks free the imagination.  I would divide time up, have times when I thought furiously about concrete things, like maths, statistics, science, even who said what to whom back in the day, and other times when I would shut down thinking, reaching for just existing, which was a hugely challenging skill, because once you’ve realised that you’ve achieved it, you are just existing, then you’re back thinking again aren’t you, its like some tricky fairground game.  Giants, like humans, need input – if it doesn’t exist, your mind creates it.  there’s me, kneeling in the eternal void, forever, carrying the world on my shoulders, and all I’ve got between me and madness is my brain.  Its an entertaining thing, a functioning brain.  This was in the days before headphones or iPods or audio books.  I rather envy anyone who gets in the same position now, they’d have all that entertainment on tap.

You ask the big questions, in such a situation.  Forget about the obvious, like why you are here – is it worth wondering about?  No, I thought more about what was specifically giant, human or god, what was the stuff of life.  What was death like.  As an immortal, I am never going to know, it’s a mystery, something that living things do so easily, they just stop breathing, they just stop the chemical factory going – well, the chemical factory keeps going, it breaks down the body into its atoms eventually – but that little strand of electricity, that spark, has gone.

Anyway, it was a day like any other, no better, no worse, and from deep down a yawn emerged – I tried to control it, I held my jaw together, but it was topped by a sneeze so I lost it, and once I’d started losing it, I lost it more and more and more.  It didn’t take much to knock the world off its place on my shoulders, it rolled away like a drunken marble, I just had time for a quick stretch and rubbed my eyes, then I was after it, like a dog after a rabbit.  It was damaged, once I’d caught it, of course it was, but its an enigmatic little thing, it is full of ingeniousness.  Once I’d parked it up again, a bit twisted round so Africa wasn’t in the same place anymore – well, once we’d got that far, a change of view for me seemed reasonable – I could get to thinking about how it would all turn out.  Just a few millennia and life will be buzzing around the planet.  I wonder what they’ll call this moment.  The Precambrian happening p’raps.

BP Portrait Award

I recently visited the National Portrait Gallery and checked out this annual fare of assorted portraits. It was quite enjoyable with a reasonable amount of deviation from the photographic style which tends to dominate. Not that that isn’t admirable, just gets a little dull when we are constantly surrounded by quality photographic images.

I was less impressed by the winners I have to say, which said very little to me and hardly stood out; one of them, ‘Holly’ barely even a portrait, far closer to a classical nude.

There were two pictures which I particularly remember, and which managed to capture a great deal in terms of resonating with contemporary issues close to my and I am sure many others’ hearts.

'OHH!' by Cayetano De Arquier Buigas

This is an amusing image which the artist set up to spark discussion about different styles of art; the model is regarding another depiction of her which has an incredibly abstract style. The artist was born in 1932 which makes me think that he was around for much of the modernist era in Spain, his native land. He has witnessed the breadth of change in art from Picasso through to the present day and must be struck by it, and wonder that we don’t recapture some of modernisms’s finer moments more often. This painting speaks to me about how we view ourselves, and has a comical expression. I visited the gallery with my friend Julia Parr, who has participated in Spirited Bodies, and she pointed out that it clearly reminded her of what it was like to model at the event, and then look at the pictures of herself with awe and wonder.

'I Could Have Been A Contender' by Wendy Elia

This is my favourite picture in the exhibition and if I was in charge it would have won! It speaks to me about what Spirited Bodies aims to address, and it so very directly and succinctly sums up the portrayal of women, in relation to family, and as posed by the artist, so it is empowering and questioning, analytical simultaneously. The daughter intrigued by her Mother’s boldness, while the son is shocked, not wanting to see her nude form. The image created by the naked artist comments on society’s unrealistic expectations of women.