The Three (Silent) Graces

On Saturday night, I attended an art reception called “Naked in New Hope”, an exhibition by 92 artists from PA, NJ, and NY (and one from Fort Collins, Colorado!) centered around the human body. One of my favorite works, and I’m not just saying this in hopes that she reads it, was of Claudia, a NYC-based figure model and author of the Museworthy blog.

The artists were required to submit photographs of themselves, and doing so required, well, some doing, as described here by Chris Carter. You’ll notice that she doesn’t publish the picture she took of herself, and instead shows one of the lovely paintings she entered in the show.

I attended the reception with two other Lehigh Valley figure models, Elizabeth Stetson and Patricia Sonne. Pat has been modeling for over twenty years, and Elizabeth and I each for about two. Between the three of us, we have been to most of the art schools, colleges, universities, and open drawing groups in the area, and spent quite a while sharing opinions and occasional complaints about mutually-known students, instructors, and private artists.

We stuck together as a trio for the evening as we wandered around the reception and then ventured into downtown New Hope, an art-and-food mecca about an hour southeast of the Lehigh Valley, exploring its streets and stores before settling into a microbrewery for dinner. During this time we laughingly referred to ourselves as “The Three Graces,” a reference to Greek mythology and the embodiment of feminine ideals that in turn frequently shows up in the visual and performing arts. (Don’t worry, I didn’t know that either until, umm, Saturday night.)

One of my favorite moments in the evening, though, came while we were still driving toward our destination. We stopped on a moment’s notice for ice cream cones at an iconic parlor called “Oh Wow Cow,” while cherishing the fact that figure models aren’t expected to maintain an artificially low body weight. A little while later, we came to a three-way intersection that had low visibility and quite a bit of traffic. Earlier, I had turned the radio off to be able to hear Pat and Elizabeth talking; as we sat at the intersection, a quiet fell across us, with no music, no car noise, and a lull in conversation.

There was no opening in the traffic after at least thirty seconds, and I began to try to break the silence. I often do this in my family by saying, “The angel of silence has swept over”, which somehow both acknowledges it and ends it. But on Saturday night, I stopped myself from talking before I actually began, and instead let the silence continue for another moment, before I was able to make our turn and we were again on our way.

It was a pause that could have happened in any group, of course. But I wondered if part of what made it a comfortable silence – almost a pretty silence, if you can imagine that – was that we are three women who spend significant amounts of time, while in the presence of others, wordless. It can be a pleasure not to have to fill every moment with conversation, chit-chat, and ideas and plans, and to instead let quietude have a place.

It WAS Just an Ordinary Day…

Hello, all, finally something interesting enough to rouse me from the couch during these dog days o’ summer. I just met a sculptor named Karel Micklaus who trained with Alexander Calder and Louis Kahn, and he wants to sculpt ME! He has a studio filled with beautiful works, mostly female figures but also some abstracts and metal/glass pieces, and on Monday we are going to collaborate on his next project. Stay tuned… and don’t melt!

It WAS Just an Ordinary Day…

Hello, all, finally something interesting enough to rouse me from the couch during these dog days o’ summer. I just met a sculptor named Karel Micklaus who trained with Alexander Calder and Louis Kahn, and he wants to sculpt ME! He has a studio filled with beautiful works, mostly female figures but also some abstracts and metal/glass pieces, and on Monday we are going to collaborate on his next project. Stay tuned… and don’t melt!

Cloudy Thoughts/Do Clouds Have Thoughts?

My faithful reader Dave was good enough to respond to my request for sketches, and a writeup about what models think about as they pose. I find his words both humorous and insightful:

“This was a 20-minute standing pose that immediately followed several other shorter poses, and I was overheated and ready for a break.  I was looking out the window watching small white clouds go by and trying to estimate how many clouds would have to go by before the pose would end.”

How often do we simply stand and watch clouds go by, and ponder their speed and number? That would be never… except for those of us lucky enough to work at a craft where we specifically must stand still and set aside our normal lives and activities for a while. I’m reminded of Tom Sawyer and his fence whitewashing scam; methinks that if we packaged this the right way, we could get stressed out business executives and A-list Hollywood celebrities to pay big bucks to come do what we do and relax. It is a Zen pursuit, my friends.

Alright, more sketches and descriptions of your thoughts while posing for them, please! By the way, to credit the above artist as well as possible, it appears his/her name was Barritt.

What Was I Thinking?

I just finished up a nine or ten week stint at Goldlight Studios, in which I showed up each and every Friday (okay, with the exception of when I took a spur-of-the-moment trip to the southwest and the class had to draw still lifes) for a three hour pose that was the same each week. This is the assignment I wrote about earlier in Draw As If Being Chased? Or As If Time Stood Still?

After all those hours looking at me with my foot up on a box and my elbow resting on a podium, the students turned out some pretty great work. The instructor, John Murdoch, is a stickler for getting started right – he even built his own easels to make sure they are perfectly level. I was impressed with the proportions of the drawings that emerged - sometimes a piece looks passably much like a person, but not like me; but these all were definitely Kimberlys that got turned out.

But after working on one portrait of me for at least six or eight hours, John set it aside to create a new one, that he liked much better, in only about 90 minutes. What I find interesting about it is two-fold: first, that I look so incredibly intense even though my mood that day was nothing but airheaded and lighthearted, and second, that I look as if I’m from both a different era and a different ethnicity than my own. This drawing reminds me of my idea of an Italian or Greek grandmother from pre-World War II, and not a whole lot of an English/French/Swedish mix born after the invention of color TV and indoor plumbing.

But the intensity of my face also makes me try to remember, what was I thinking about? I think the most serious thought I was actually having was what work I was going to pursue over the summer, since at the moment I had nothing at all lined up, and in the few days since, after much effort, I’ve only found one additional session. Other than that, I was truly having a “Hmm, should I get a pedicure this afternoon?”/stomach growling and trying to decide what to have for lunch/and slightly-romantic-daydream-that-I-may-be-able-to -turn-into-a-short-story type of experience. So, my readers whom have waited far to long for the next installment to my blog, I would like to invite you to post a drawing or painting of yourself and explain where it’s from and what you remember about your own thought process while it was create – and, if it at all matches what it LOOKS like you were thinking about? Here’s hoping for some fun ones…

A Feast for the Eyes

Happy Monday, all. I’m deeeeeeppp into writing a work of fiction and can’t shift my brain into producing a post worthy of your time, so I’m going to shamelessly direct you to the blog of artist Fred Hatt in hopes that you will mentally associate me with his images of gorgeous and diverse poses and models.

And, my giant apologies, even though I’m not sure if it’s my fault or that of WordPress, for the delay in approving and responding to comments over the past few weeks. I always greatly appreciate reader feedback – especially your words of support regarding my job loss – and I hope that whatever glitch in Virtual Technology Faerie Land that has been slowing this process is now worked out.

Blech!!!

I have weirdlly slow access to WordPress these days so please forgive my lack of scintillating, life-changing posts (oh, yeah, that’s why!) I’ll be back once I figure out the problem… until then, happy modeling!