Life Modelling

EDIT: recursive link from Spirited Bodies.
http://spiritedbodies.com/2012/11/21/developing-in-the-workshop/

In a life drawing class a few weeks ago, the model announced that she was part of a group called Spirited Bodies, and that they were on the lookout for more models and artists. The aim of SB is a "Community encouraging people to love their bodies as they are, in particular finding body confidence and inner peace via life modelling in a group", its mission to "empower people to have a positive body image, and focus more within" and it runs "Multi-Life Modelling Events where people may recast their body consciousness". 

I think, and I could well be wrong about this, the target person is someone who feels that because they don't fit a Barbie/Ken sterotype there is something wrong with them and they shouldn't be seen in public, let alone with no clothes on. Those who know me would not associate me with lack of body confidence I'm sure, but I'm certainly not a standard issue action man either. Because the sessions involve lots of models I thought this was a low pressure route into life modelling, so I duly put myself forward. 

Tonight, I participated in a preparatory workshop in Clapham, involving two of the organisers, 8 models and 4 artists. It was Ve-ry In-ter-esting ... 

Bit of strange space (computer training room with a vaguely open area in the middle), and a tentative start, but then it settled down. Unlike a normal life class, there was lots of stopping and starting and a bit of talking. People took in turns to pose, given various directions "two minutes, convey a strong emotion" and the rest drew. Pointers of a practical nature were offered and discussed. Various small groups were formed and switched. Doodles/sketches shown at the end. Friendships formed.

So there we are, I now have nearly 20 minutes experience as a life model! Woo!

Aside from standing in one place not talking for minutes at a time, I found the idea of generating the pose the hardest work. I thought "righto I'll try THIS". It might be good, or boring, or hard to hold, and being a noob consists of a lot of trial and error, it seems. Unlike doing a presentation, once the pose is set, there's no playing around with it. If if doesn't work you just have to lump it and do different next time. It's also a bit of challenge working In The Round (I'm so used to rectangular spaces, with me up at one end). I can see why SB place emphasis on the workshops! 

Having a Tai Chi background definitely helped. Not only in standing practice, but also in having a repertoire of ready dynamic poses ready to roll. The main event is later in the year, when there will be dozens of models and even more artists. More reflections to come in the fullness of time.

Don't care about your gender, but may I just say ...

Quite an interesting naturist swim night at Alton (previously on Repulsive Monkey).

Because I don't go that often, and knowing that traditional naturist functions might be on the decline, I do sometimes worry that the session won't be there especially if not enough people go. I guess the leisure centre think it's worthwhile. I got there about mid way, and there were noticeably more people there.   At least given the number of shoes in the changing room. The leisure centre open up the two (M and F) group changing rooms, but naturist couples tend to go to either as a couple (why get shy about stripping off separately for two minutes, only to rejoin unclothed?) so I saw a few female shoes amongst the clumpy male ones.

Once in the pool, it's possible to see what the turnout is like. About the same gender ratio as usual: about 5 women to the 30 men, and the same sort of demographics.

They appeared to me to be the regulars (I'm a semi-regular at best), but a few newbies, including, gasp! some youngish people.  One slightly younger person, to whom I'd spoken casually before (I think I'd said something about a tattoo some months ago) now looked a bit different. The tattoo project had come along nicely (a sinuous floral design around the side and back, not too dense, subtle colours), but also something about her body had changed. Hair, legs, breasts all the same, but hang on ... no more penis. 

Flashback to about a year ago, doing the same sort of who's in tonight mental survey: Man, Man, Man, Woman, Man, Man, Woman ... no hang on, a Bit of Both!  So my first live in the flesh transgender person then. I guessed that for this person, or indeed any person who might feel uncomfortable in a conformist situation, swimming is easier in a naturist environment, which nominally at least is based on liberalism of the body's actual condition, as opposed to having it conform to an ideal (especially an unseen ideal).  I had no idea initially if this was a she becoming a he, or the other way, or neither, and nor did I feel it proper to enquire. Over subsequent swims (several weeks/months, including chatting about body decs), it appeared likely that whatever the story, the trajectory was towards female.

... and Back to the other night.

I had to ask: had it taken a long time/trouble etc? I don't think I was being prurient, and maybe I was motivated by a desire to empathise.  Apparently not: lots of counselling, and hormones, but the actual operation wasn't a big thing for her, just a bit of "donor organ" that she didn't need. I put forward my little theory that a naturist environment is quite a bit more accepting of, shall we say, unconventional physical configurations.  She agreed, though not wholeheartedly. Not that this was the reason for coming to naturist swimming nights (i.e. as the only stare-free option available for someone who might not be accepted in either changing room), as her parents were naturists of old so it was all quite normal.

I also talked to another woman, who turned out to know quite a few people and places I know from my work life, so physicists and hangers-on of various sorts. This all started from one of those weather-type conversations:  "in my day our computers 'ad beige keyboards, terrible they were", "luxury! we 'ad to work on steam-powered teletypes", etc etc conversations.  I didn't expect to be talking about computing architectures, the scientific end of the civil service, EXAFS and other forms of spectroscopy, but there you go. Small world.

Sketchbook Update

Here are some art-related uploads to Flickr.


Draw: Gesture. Class described previously.

  

Recent Holborn and ULU drop-in classes.

   

There of more of each sort in the respective sets.

These are flagged as Moderate in Flickr, so you'll have to log into your Flickr account and set your Safety preferences accordingly, if you want to see the nudes.


Tutored class : Drawing in the British Museum.
The concept of this one was a more experimental approach to drawing, as you can see. Working from the objects on display, and catching a couple of visitors.

Draw : Gesture Workshop

To Brighton for D's birthday, where we mooched around and ate food, and I stared at another naked person for two hours.

(Birthday was nice thanks, Terre à Terre was smashing, as usual, and also a shout out to the Prince George - more delicious veggie grub and a decent pint. Apart from that Brighton was up to its usual standard. We ambled around the shops, glanced at the sea, avoided the semi-ritualistic EDL shoutfest, and even sipped a Jubilee themed cocktail).

In the morning, I dropped into one of Draw's workshops, this one on Gesture Drawing. This is basically about capturing the essence of a pose in a short time.

Draw's HQ is in a rather unprepossessing, if not downright brutal, tower block in that slopey bit of territory between the high ground of the station and the low level of the Old Steine. Inside, it's all industrial paint finishes, exposed concrete and boomy acoustics. I can imagine a Blake's 7 episode being filmed there. But entering the studios is a surprise. It's a bit like Second Life actually, everything's very plain and cut and paste, stylistically, then you turn a corner and you are in someone else's head.  The Draw space is filled with bits and bobs of costumes, piles of props, shelves full of materials and books. Floaty white cloth on the tall windows distributes the light, and there are chairs and easels around.

Having gathered a quorum of artists (I got the impression that the start time was more of a suggested aim rather than a scheduled event), Jake introduced the class concept, the relationship of this workshop to the others and to the untutored drop-ins, and the model (Laura).

We started by drawing without looking. OK we looked a bit (can't help it!), but the idea was to work with the eyes and the model primarily, following the features with the drawing implement. We did a bunch of those, switching between 2-3 minute poses, before then allowing some looking ("look at the model more than the paper"), again with rapid switching of poses. Laura had her work cut out, having to spin around on her little dais so that we all got some physical variety.

The results of the blind drawings were quite scary-looking, so are probably not going to be published. EDIT: some on Flickr. Mine looked like a violent struggle had taken place on the paper, whereas others' were evocative of repetitive therapeutic movements, possibly within the scope of a medical treatment of some kind.  All very entertaining!

Advice was then given on the quality of lines to aim for : keying the important lines to the significant structure (some anatomical insight being vital); using the emotional aspect of the pose as a cue to the style of mark-making; iterating the confident, expressive line, rather than scratching a series of tentative ones. This all seemed credible, but slightly harder to put into practice.  Perhaps I could have done with some demonstrations or some feedback on what I was doing.

And so we progressed, fortified by tea and the solidarity of the company, toward the slightly longer realm of the 10 minute pose. We were encouraged to treat the first 2-3 minutes of the drawing as an exercise in itself, using the remaining time for an upgrade of the initial sketch. Drawing holistically is much more successful than working from top to bottom or left to right.  Amongst other things, it's more likely that the scale of the drawing is going to be self-consistent, which saves time in the end, and makes a composition more successful.

All in all, a useful provocative and energising class. I'm going to have to work it through somehow, of course by doing more drawing, but maybe a bit of reading, probably starting with my Betty Edwards  The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, or perhaps Kimon Nicolaides' The Natural Way to Draw.

Visit to Abbey House Gardens

I had a very enjoyable afternoon getting naked in someone else's garden last weekend. Here's a trip report.

Readers in the UK may be familiar with Abbey House Gardens in Malmesbury, Wiltshire. It's a quite a well-known ornamental garden, er, what's that ghastly word, attraction, that happens also to have several clothing-optional days each year. The owners are themselves naturists, who some time ago they thought to start an experiment, thinking that it would be interesting to see how naturists and clothed visitors might interact. These is somewhat different from when a naturist club takes over a regular venue for a designated period. On such occasions the only visitors are those who know about it in advance. Alton Towers, for example. has annual downtime on its rides though their leisure pool remains open, and so there's a BN-organised visit to the site that weekend. At AHG, however, they take the perhaps bold view that there's no need to close the site to everyone, merely to place enough notices at the entrance and on the website to "warn" the clothed constituency.

So how does it go? Quite well, as it happens. The existence of these days is pretty well-known in the naturist scene, so I've been planning to go along for at least a couple of years. Usually, there's been some sort of excuse not to go, apart from laziness, like poor weather or a family do. Last weekend was bright and warm (hot even), and D was wrapped up in OU work, so off I went. We'd visited the gardens once before after a WOMAD festival, so even if the place was going to be full of weirdos, I knew it wasn't going to be dreadful afternoon.

Having driven along a very warm M4, I park at the town pay and display (very full), and yomp up the steps to the old town and Abbey. What's this? Through the not-very-opaque fence/screen on the garden boundary, one can just see naked men and women ... Past the special signs, pause at the ticket hut to pay (I was expecting a "you do know it's nudie day" spiel but no comment was offered), and I go in. It all looks normal; lots of formal hedges, topiary and sculpture, with interesting planting distributed artfully, all looking in excellent order.  The first visitors I see, in the first of the garden areas, is a family sat around a table looking a bit glum as if their favourite team's just been relegated. Perhaps they all take mood cues from their two teenagers, who look especially non-plussed. And on then through a leafy arch into the bit where the tea shop is, and here we are in a swirl of nudity! About 30 people milling around in the buff. There are some people wearing clothes, but not many. Perhaps the Glums were not impressed, and had retreated to consider their options.

Changing, or rather unclothing, is done in what is usually the (covered) restaurant section off from the tea garden. Carrier bags containing visitor's clothes are spread around, each numbered with a ticket. Ian himself sits numbering bags. I got number 389 (don't know if they started with 001). It reminds me of the kit area at a road race, there are that many bags. The teashop, with a least three staff, is working furiously to keep up with demand. Clearly, there's no problem with visitor numbers!

Having de-clothed, I have a more extensive look around. The main gardens have various areas, and the two lawns are both full of people, walking around (there is so much planting and sculpture to see and admire), or lying or sitting on towels, some having picnic lunches. There must be more than 150 visitors just by a quick count, probably more. Amongst them are perhaps a dozen people wearing any clothes at all, several of whom are with their naturist partners. It seems an ideal environment for the "mixed" couple or family. As you might expect, there is a bit of a male bias, but there are plenty of couples and groups, and even a couple of families with young children.

The atmosphere is very convivial and chatty, more like a garden party than a standard open garden, certainly at the upper level of the site, where the formal aspects are more developed. Behind the Abbey house, the ground falls down to river (Avon?) level, by means of a series of labyrinthine zig-zag paths and steps. This is the area that's vaguely glimpsed from the nearby footpaths. There are many things to see down here, both living and man-made, and the feel is not so formal, more loose and free.

Eventually I reach the river level.  There's a natural theme to the garden here, with the river being crossed by a footbridge, a little hut/pagoda on an island, and some water features. The planting is also beautiful (and labelled by species).

Again, there are chatty visitors walking around alone or in small groups, a couple of families with younger children, and a score of people lying on the lawn. Clothing is very unusual to see. It's hard to find a free spot, but I do find a space to sit, where I draw some of the grounds, especially the art, but also the people.

Drawing is a nice way to get talking to people, being fairly unintrusive, and people like to be drawn or to talk about their own supposed lack of skill. "I wish I could draw, but I really can't".  I have to dispute this, in the nicest possible way: "There's no big secret to it (though there are some tricks). Just draw what you see, hundreds of times, and be prepared to do it better next time".

Some discussion ensues about the suitability of the river for swimming. Certainly the hundreds of tiny fish seem to like it. It looks shallow, clear, and not too fast, so in I go. The bottom is soft and squishy with alluvium but once I'm in properly it's extremely nice. I do a couple of lengths (not knowing where it goes after the footbridge!) turn around and hop out. No messing about with cossies or towels, just jump in and out, and let the sun do the drying.

That's the essence of naturism for me: no fuss, no membership card, no elaborate rituals. It's simple enjoyment of the elements, the body and its senses, and friendly company.