Reading of Posky’s brush with the eggmen, I fell to thinking of my own eggman incident …
About six years ago I went through a phase of attending life-drawing classes. Life-drawing involves drawing a model who poses naked in front of the class. Classes may be held in art schools, galleries or community halls. Students set up their easels or their chairs around a dias on which the model sits or stands. The classes are three to four hours in duration with a tea break in the middle, and the instructor will set various exercises throughout, usually starting with short 2-minute sketches and gradually increasing to more formal 40-minute drawings.
The world of the life class is an odd little cul-de-sac. Everything is ancient and rustic – easels don’t work, chairs wobble, students use charcoal to draw lines and rolled-up bread to erase them. And the bounteously-built woman rules. For within minutes of starting, the rank beginner divines that drawing a big curvy woman is a thousand times more gratifying than drawing a thin woman, or any kind of man. Women have more inherent interest to their bodies, and the more woman, the more interest. The interest lies in the contrast of planes and the promise of movement, a certain dynamism, in each part. A man’s body, by comparison, is more fixed and the torso generally must move as one or not at all.
Our favourite model at the Victorian College of the Arts was a woman called Nicola. She was in her late 20s probably, neither pretty nor plain, with an effortlessly monumental quality to every gesture. Over 6 foot tall, she had medium-sized breasts, a tiny high waist and a huge outswelling of hip and bottom, and it was impossible to make a bad drawing of her. Her powerful, eloquent body would, as it were, do the drawing for you. With just a hand, a flick of the ponytail, she made us all into Degas.
*****
As well as the rusticity and inversion of female desirability, there is at times, it must be said, in the world of the life class, an air of imminent orgy. Oh yes, everyone is on their best behaviour, very studiously acting as if staring at someone’s private parts for 10 minutes is something they do everyday. But despite the unspoken truce people make at the door, sometimes the unnaturalness will out.
The funniest occasion was an evening class at Fitzroy. The model was a woman in her 50s called Doris. A grandmother, she was big and bountiful, especially around the middle, with a square-shaped head and auburn hair in two square wings. Doris looked as if she’d just shucked off a load of care, and she posed in glorious equanimity on the stage for an hour or two. At every mini-break a small man in a flat cap, a fellow student, circled the room trying to chat up every female student. He came to my easel, introduced himself and gave me his card. Now given the best behaviour code, this was unusual but innocuous. So we were unprepared for the announcement of the proprietor after the main break.
Eyes dancing, lips smacking at foible and anticipation of tableau, the proprietor cleared his throat:
Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, I’ve had a request. One of our students it seems is a professional model and he has offered his services as an impromptu model for this evening. Does anyone have an objection to him joining Doris on the stage?
Rather belatedly, he asked Doris if she minded, to which she shrugged. What else could she do? And the rest of us goggled or looked at our shoes. Taking our silence as assent next thing there was a rustling behind the easel and our fellow student, shorn of his clothes and flat cap, emerged eager into the light a small skinny man with a shiny pink egg of a head. And with a flash of his rosy orb he leapt on to the stage, and after much fussing and sighing (on Doris’s part), took up a pose at her knee like an imperfectly restrained pet. Poor Doris assumed her care again forthwith, and for the rest of the night, and to this day, I have in my mind’s eye a vision of the two of them posing: a grandmother and her unwelcome eggman.
Update
Here’s Doris, whose name is actually Gladys I now see, solo.
And here she is with eggman who doesn’t look very eggy.
And some more sketches of Nicola.
*****
You know we are dying to have you post the drawing you made that night!
haha, I’ll see if I can find it :)
The visual is….well, yet, again, I find that there are more things in heaven and earth, than are dreamt of in my philosophy! :)
Yes, the visual, and Shakespeare, overtop it all :) Def of life class: a place where this too too solid flesh should not melt …
Eggmen certianly add a specific quality to any situation but I’m not sure what adjective to use. I suppose “memorable” would be the only safe one.
I did a few life drawings in my day and it just seemed too ridiculous. I am much more of a story teller than a true artist and I couldn’t stop thinking about the who the person was and why they were okay with being nude. It made appreciating their body for what it was difficult. Likewise, I always wanted to get up and say, “Does this seem creepy to anyone else? This is, by far, the oldest and creepiest room on campus and we’re drawing someone’s gentiles.”
I once expressed my feelings to a girlfriend who modeled for a life drawing class and she couldn’t see where I was coming from until someone mailed her one of the drawings of her with a raunchy letter. My painter friends still insist that it is a necessary class on the road to becoming an artist though.
haha, “memorable” works. I get what you say about thinking who the person was and why they were okay about it. That’s what I used to do too. Some were easy to pick, like the late 40s guy who told me he worked by day for a big corporate firm; modelling was his “walk on the wild side” I reckon. The Doris/Gladys in my story was much harder to pick. Maybe something to do with defiance and dreams. And courage. I think life classes, more than any other drawing class, teach us to draw what’s there, rather than what we think is there. BTW, I love your drawings. The pure line is so decisive.
the word for testicles in hebrew is “batzim” which also means eggs. any connection to you choice of “the egg-men”?
BTW, i would also create a story in my mind about your egg-man being so eager to disrobe, but then again i would probably be the first one to volunteer if asked… hmmmm?
In Russian, too, by the way.
Daphna, I’m seeing a new side of you, figuratively for now… :)
How funny. The rest of the world has eggs=testicles, and the English-speaking world has eggs=breakfast.
Seriously? How funny. Batzim. Would you believe me if I said I wouldn’t know about the state of his eggs? I felt a single glance eggward would only encourage him further. From the absence of gasps, however, I infer that eggman’s eagerness to disrobe was not connected to his eggs (if that was the story you had going). Now I have a picture in my mind of you and eggman on stage …
I’ll never listen to “I Am The Walrus” the same way again!
PS–Your drawings are impressive.
funny thomas!
goo goo g’joob…
thomas your brother may live around the corner from me? small world.
Really?? I remember you saying you were from Cleveland–whereabouts? Are you a native?
thomas,
i’ve sent you an email about where we live.
@dafna, what does one Clevelander say to another? Goo goo g’joob :)
hehe ;)
Your drawings are excellent.
I liked this story, especially the part about the “imminent orgy.”
As a young young woman in college, I, too, took a freehand drawing course. I remember the atmosphere in that bright room, lit by natural light from above. We were nervous but acting cool, with our supplies of charcoal and paper.
When the male model walked out, disrobed, and positioned himself, it was the first time I had seen a man completely naked.
Needless to say, my drawing was lousy. I couldn’t concentrate.
I love your true confessions, Cheri. How extraordinary your first good look at a naked man was in art class. Given he wouldn’t have been in his … what shall we say, pomp … can’t help wondering if you were doing a Peggy Lee, “is that all there is?” ;)
:)
Let me clarify.
It was the first time I saw a man naked from head to toe.
hehe