You’re on your first assignment. You’ve done your first few gesture poses and are juuuuuust starting to get comfortable with the fact that you’re completely nude. You go for a longer pose. You’re starting to get in that Zen-like state (which I’ll discuss more in the next post) where you’ve found something to meditate on, but you’re not completely lost in the moment, either. And then it happens:
THWAP! CLUNK! BANG! CRASH!
Someone tipped their easel over, came late to class and SLAMMED the door shut, or dropped their pad of paper.
So how do you avoid perfectly natural instincts like looking at where the noise is coming from (or jumping out of your skin!)?
I’ll be honest: there aren’t any hard and fast rules. You kind of just learn to block things out after a while and remain composed--it’s one of those things that you just get better at the more you do it. There’s different types of distractions in the classroom, and what I’d like to do in this post is to tell you about some of the more common ones and how to minimize them so you can remain in pose.
Visible distractions: the best way to avoid these types of distractions is to avoid looking at any one particular person in the room if at all possible. You normally don’t want to be looking at anyone in any event, as people understandably have a tendency to move during a session, and it’s only natural that your eyes (and head) might inadvertently follow them. And let’s face it: if someone was staring directly at you for 20 minutes, you might get a little freaked out! Most importantly, if someone should come to class late, chances are that your eyes will be focused somewhere where you won't be tempted to look at the latecomer walk across the room and get settled.
You also don’t want to focus on inanimate objects that still have the tendency to move, such as an artist’s easel or a tree branch outside that might get rustled by the wind. It’s for these reasons that I try and find a spot on the wall that generally forces me to look up somewhat, and thus away from any line-of-sight distractions, particularly if people decide to move their position while I'm in the middle of the pose. I’ve also found that after a while, my vision starts to get a little fuzzy and I start to get tunnel vision. This actually helps, because you have a smaller, softer field of vision, and are thus less likely to pick up on any distractions in the classroom.
Every now and then you’ll get into pose and you’ll notice someone just moved into your line of sight because they moved their seat. If you’ve only been in pose for a few seconds, there’s generally no harm in moving your head minimally until you can find a new spot on the wall or on the floor to focus on. I’ve had to do it a few times. On a similar note, a lot of drawing groups are very casual, and artists will sometimes sit on the floor to draw you. And you may find that as they shift their bodies, the errant arm or leg will come into your field of view. In this case, you might have already been in pose for a few minutes, so you probably don’t want to move your head. What I usually do is shift my eyes ever so slightly to where I find another point on the floor to focus on that still keeps my head locked into the same position.
Audible distractions: you’ll know you’re a pro when someone accidentally knocks their easel over it, people jump up and shriek in fright, and you maintain your pose the entire time. That’s when you’ve made it to the big leagues! You heard the sound, so you aren’t lost in your own little world, but you’re mellow and focused enough that it doesn’t faze you in the least.
Aural distractions are a little harder to tune out then visual distractions, especially if the source of the sound is well outside your field of vision (think of a car backfiring on a busy street and you’ll know what I mean). This one is more mental discipline, and it’s a little harder, I’ve found, to trick your ears and your brain than it is your eyes. In my next post, I’ll tell you what I typically think (and don’t think) about when I’m on the podium, and how that helps get me into a special state where my brain is in the moment, but not overly so. It requires a bit more detail that’s really deserving of its own post, but just know that there’s a way to get your brain into a state where you pick up on things, but aren’t focused on them.
Other distractions:
Room temperature: this may not initially be an obvious distraction to most people, but a room that’s too hot or too cold will definitely distract you while up on the podium. Keep in mind that you’re not wearing any clothes, and you have the right to have the room at a temperature that’s comfortable for you so you’re relaxed and in the right frame of mind to give your best poses. In cases where the room is cold, someone will generally have access to a small space heater, but there’s been at least one instance where I was freezing toward the end of the night. It was early on in my career, and I didn’t even think to ask if there was a heater available. Don’t feel shy in asking for a heater or for them to focus more lights on you (and believe me, with all the lights that are on you anyways, you’ll probably be running a little hot, even if the room itself is somewhat cool). And I’ve had several people hem and haw when I’ve asked for a heater, but I don’t let them off the hook. That one session I just told you about? I was literally shivering when I was done for the night, and spent the first few minutes afterwards just trying to warm myself up. You can bet I won’t do that again!
Conversely, sometimes the room you’ll be posing in doesn’t have any air conditioning, and you’ll be sweating bullets. In those cases, I’d advise you to do simpler, less-strenuous poses, hydrate frequently, and ask to take a quick break if you find yourself getting dizzy. And I’d recommend that your longer poses be seated or reclining.
Visitors: every now and then, someone from outside the class might need to enter the room for a few minutes. While I’ve already discussed what you should do to minimize the impact of a person walking into the room late, this adds a bit of a twist because this person isn’t running late or anything: they’re not in the class at all! So they’re not the regularly scheduled people that are supposed to be seeing you nude.
For instance, I remember my first time modeling, there was a band rehearsing in the other room, and I was informed that on occasion, they’d need to enter our room in order to get equipment from outside, if you can believe it! In this case, however, I was told about this up front, and I agreed to it (and sure enough, they didn’t try to cop a look or anything, and were quite professional).
But sometimes, particularly in a classroom setting, you may have someone who’s not in the class but needs to get into the room, such as a professor from the next room over who needs to grab extra chairs, or a parent dropping off supplies for a student.
In cases like these, there’s really not much you can do, and I’ve never had an issue with someone staring at me when they shouldn’t (and this is one of the few cases where I’d recommend shifting your eyes just to make sure of this). Most people know enough to respect you by not looking at you. But if you find someone who’s clearly staring or loitering longer than they should, I think you’d have a completely legitimate reason to say something.
Smells: there have been one or two people over the years that had particularly pungent body odor. This one’s a real toughie. You can “program” your brain to be on standby mode. You can direct your eyes to a place in the room where no one will enter your vision. But you do have to breathe.
You're probably gonna have to suck this one up. You can’t move the podium, and chances are that person is going to be sitting where they’re sitting for the next three hours. This is unfortunately going to have to be a badge of honor, like not flinching when someone drops their art supplies. It’s definitely a case of mental discipline!
Immature students: if you’re in a class of freshmen or have a pre-college class, you’re going to have to deal with the fact that you might be the first person they’ve seen completely naked in real life. And for a lot of people, giggling is a defense mechanism that helps someone try to process something out that they’re really not prepared for. It hasn’t happened to me aside from one particular class, and you’ll be hard pressed to find a professor that doesn’t take a hard line on that immediately. I’ve both spoken with models about this as well as read models’ stories on the Internet, and it’s pretty much a universal truism that anyone caught giggling, trying to “distract” the model (usually a female student who thinks it’s funny to park herself in front of you and show you her cleavage while you’re trying to hold a pose) or otherwise acting immaturely is asked to leave immediately, and oftentimes will be booted from the course. I’ve known models who’ve said they’ve broken pose and said they refuse to continue unless the giggling and chattering stops.
And with that, I’d like to close by saying that virtually every single person I’ve posed for has been nothing less than 100 percent respectful of me and my body. I’ve had multiple professors let me know my comfort (physical and mental) was paramount. I guarantee you that you’ll discover likewise. But at the same time, no one’s a mind reader, so you do need to speak up if you’re not totally comfortable. But any artist or professor who’s worth their salt knows that without someone willing to do what you’re doing, there’s only so much art that can be created. And they’re typically sympathetic to and protective of their models as a result.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Thursday, September 9, 2010
The Ambassador
The longer you model, the more you’ll find you’ll have some particularly inspiring or uplifting experiences. I’ve never had any truly negative experiences, but every so often, there’ll be a session that just hits the high notes for the entire duration. You learn to really, really appreciate them when they happen. They’re truly special. Dare I say it, you might even take those memories all the way to your grave.
I blogged about one particular experience earlier in the year (http://lightnessofjason.blogspot.com/2010/03/reflections.html). And I had another, incredibly positive experience last Saturday. Earlier that week, I got an email from a major art museum downtown. They were looking for a model for their Free Summer Saturdays program. Basically, as the woman who emailed me explained over the phone, they have an impromptu, pick-up drawing session that’s held Saturday afternoons in the atrium of the museum’s lobby during the summer. Anyone who wants to draw can get a clipboard, paper, and a pencil and draw out in the open atrium for as long as they wish.
Naturally, my first question was to confirm that this was a clothed gig (it was)! The woman I spoke with said that traditionally, there was a certain woman who worked these Saturday sessions, so she figured that having a male model would be a nice change of pace for everyone.
Yeah, no pressure!
I arrived on Saturday shortly before noon and there was a choir performing in the atrium. I thought that was pretty neat, especially because—as talented as they were—the conductor noted their ensemble had only gotten together several weeks prior.
Soon enough, the choir dispersed, and I saw a woman set a precariously small podium in the middle of the atrium.
After checking in, I chilled out for a few minutes as the coordinator set up chairs around the perimeter of the atrium and started handing out drawing supplies. There were a lot more people than I anticipated! About 30 to 40 seats had been laid out, and virtually all of them were occupied by the time I was asked to start!
Given that the podium was so small (maybe 4 X 2, and that’s probably being generous), I felt a bit limited in my poses, particularly as the format was simply to do 10-minute poses until whenever I wanted a break. Ten minutes is too long to hold most action-oriented poses, and in any event, the size of the platform really prohibited any pose that was too gripping.
So I figured I’d do three standing poses, take a break, do three seated poses, take a break, and repeat the cycle for three hours. Since I had zero idea of the skill level of the participants, I decided that I’d keep the poses fairly basic.
As a later post will tell you, it’s tough sometimes to block out the typical distractions that come along with the average classroom. But that’s multiplied tenfold in a museum! It’s one giant cocoon of sound, people are coming and going, staring, pointing, walking in your field of vision, singing (the choir had an encore presentation right above me!) taking pictures (note: I devoted an entire blog post to this subject recently, but this was a clothed gig out in the open, so it was no big deal. And besides, in a public setting like that, you really don’t have much in the way of privacy expectations, which I knew full well going in). It’s a lot to block out in order to keep your composure and successfully hold your poses.
It was amazing! People were:
A mix of people were drawing me: toddlers, seniors, people of all backgrounds and races. I found that to be incredibly, incredibly inspiring.
And then, towards the end of the session, it finally hit me: I was an ambassador of sorts for the art world. I mean, not literally, of course. But I realized that, for three hours, people from all walks of life, from all over the world, were either drawing me or stopping to grab their friends and family and look intently at what was going on in front of them. I even saw children drag their parents to the session! For many, I’m sure this was their first experience with either drawing a model or directly observing what happens when people draw from a model.
I’d like to think that hopefully, I was able to:
It was an incredibly powerful feeling, which is hitting me even moreso while I sit down to type this.
You see, it’s experiences like these that really make it so rewarding to sit still in front of complete strangers for several hours. And while I’ve definitely had my share of classes that felt like they were on autopilot, it’s experiences like this one, and the one I linked to earlier, that make me proud to do what I do. Where people walk by, hesitate, and decide to spend a few minutes or more drawing you. Where people applaud and congratulate you for sharing something of yourself for a few hours in both of your lives. They’re experiences that are indelibly etched in my memory. And I count myself lucky to be able to have been afforded this, the opportunity, to do what I do.
I blogged about one particular experience earlier in the year (http://lightnessofjason.blogspot.com/2010/03/reflections.html). And I had another, incredibly positive experience last Saturday. Earlier that week, I got an email from a major art museum downtown. They were looking for a model for their Free Summer Saturdays program. Basically, as the woman who emailed me explained over the phone, they have an impromptu, pick-up drawing session that’s held Saturday afternoons in the atrium of the museum’s lobby during the summer. Anyone who wants to draw can get a clipboard, paper, and a pencil and draw out in the open atrium for as long as they wish.
Naturally, my first question was to confirm that this was a clothed gig (it was)! The woman I spoke with said that traditionally, there was a certain woman who worked these Saturday sessions, so she figured that having a male model would be a nice change of pace for everyone.
Yeah, no pressure!
I arrived on Saturday shortly before noon and there was a choir performing in the atrium. I thought that was pretty neat, especially because—as talented as they were—the conductor noted their ensemble had only gotten together several weeks prior.
Soon enough, the choir dispersed, and I saw a woman set a precariously small podium in the middle of the atrium.
After checking in, I chilled out for a few minutes as the coordinator set up chairs around the perimeter of the atrium and started handing out drawing supplies. There were a lot more people than I anticipated! About 30 to 40 seats had been laid out, and virtually all of them were occupied by the time I was asked to start!
Given that the podium was so small (maybe 4 X 2, and that’s probably being generous), I felt a bit limited in my poses, particularly as the format was simply to do 10-minute poses until whenever I wanted a break. Ten minutes is too long to hold most action-oriented poses, and in any event, the size of the platform really prohibited any pose that was too gripping.
So I figured I’d do three standing poses, take a break, do three seated poses, take a break, and repeat the cycle for three hours. Since I had zero idea of the skill level of the participants, I decided that I’d keep the poses fairly basic.
As a later post will tell you, it’s tough sometimes to block out the typical distractions that come along with the average classroom. But that’s multiplied tenfold in a museum! It’s one giant cocoon of sound, people are coming and going, staring, pointing, walking in your field of vision, singing (the choir had an encore presentation right above me!) taking pictures (note: I devoted an entire blog post to this subject recently, but this was a clothed gig out in the open, so it was no big deal. And besides, in a public setting like that, you really don’t have much in the way of privacy expectations, which I knew full well going in). It’s a lot to block out in order to keep your composure and successfully hold your poses.
It was amazing! People were:
- Slowly walking towards the atrium, trying to find out what the commotion was
- Standing and looking when they did find out what the commotion was
- Taking pictures of me (I was a real hit with Asian tourists in particular)
- Pointing and observing me from the balcony
- Applauding me between sets(!)
- Asking if I was an actor (which was nice, since I've been on the fence about doing another play)
A mix of people were drawing me: toddlers, seniors, people of all backgrounds and races. I found that to be incredibly, incredibly inspiring.
And then, towards the end of the session, it finally hit me: I was an ambassador of sorts for the art world. I mean, not literally, of course. But I realized that, for three hours, people from all walks of life, from all over the world, were either drawing me or stopping to grab their friends and family and look intently at what was going on in front of them. I even saw children drag their parents to the session! For many, I’m sure this was their first experience with either drawing a model or directly observing what happens when people draw from a model.
I’d like to think that hopefully, I was able to:
- Inspire people to find their inner artist
- Persuade someone to take their first art class
- Encourage someone to push for more funding for the arts in schools
It was an incredibly powerful feeling, which is hitting me even moreso while I sit down to type this.
You see, it’s experiences like these that really make it so rewarding to sit still in front of complete strangers for several hours. And while I’ve definitely had my share of classes that felt like they were on autopilot, it’s experiences like this one, and the one I linked to earlier, that make me proud to do what I do. Where people walk by, hesitate, and decide to spend a few minutes or more drawing you. Where people applaud and congratulate you for sharing something of yourself for a few hours in both of your lives. They’re experiences that are indelibly etched in my memory. And I count myself lucky to be able to have been afforded this, the opportunity, to do what I do.
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Don't Spend it All in One Place
In fact, don’t spend it at all until you’ve got that money in your hand or you’ve at least physically modeled for your session.
When you get multiple bookings over the course of a few weeks or a few months, you’ll find yourself tempted, to (ahem) bank on that money to the point where you begin to consider it as good as yours. And proceed to start spending it in advance. This probably won’t happen to you after your first gig or two. It’ll most likely happen when your modeling career starts to take off and you find yourself working multiple times a month as opposed to once or twice every few months. Your popularity and demand will increase, and with all these bookings coming in, you may find yourself tempted to treat these upcoming sessions like the money’s already in your pocket.
I’m here to tell you this is generally a bad idea. Gigs can and do get canceled. In the past week, I’ve had one gig canceled due to low class enrollment (luckily, I was only on deck to model once for that class. I think there were one or two models who got screwed out of multiple sessions), and today, a drawing group canceled an upcoming session later this week (though I did get rebooked for later in the year).
And naturally, since one of these sessions was on the tail end of a long weekend, I figured I’d use that money in advance to splurge on some food and wine for the long holiday. After all, I reckoned, I’d be getting that money in cash in just a few days’ time.
It’s honestly no big deal, because these things happen, and you have to roll with the punches. No one owes you a living, and you’d be wrong to treat artists as such. But I realized that it’s a really good teaching moment: Don’t spend that money until it’s either in your hands, or until you’ve actually modeled for that class and know a check’s in the mail (and even then, you may want to wait until you have a check in hand).
It’s really, really tempting to start adding up that upcoming windfall of cash over the coming months and automatically make plans for it. Ever find a spare $20 in a pair of pants you haven’t worn for a while? Well, pretend that $20 is now several hundred dollars and instead of a pair of pants, it’s in the form of an email that says someone wants you to work for them three times in the next month. And now you’ll hopefully begin see where you find yourself thinking that money’s as good as yours. So why not spend some of it? After all, the email just said you were going to get three bookings.
Well, even if that gig doesn’t cancel, you could get sick. You could get stuck having to work late. There’s a whole host of reasons that you'd have to cancel, and you just can’t predict these things.
As I said in my last blog entry, you should view your modeling income as easy come, easy go. It’s just not a reliable enough source of income (for most people) to treat as steady money. I’ve been very lucky in the sense that I’ve only had a handful of gigs cancel since I’ve been doing this, and in most cases, I just got rescheduled later in the term.
But then, I’ve also had people promise to book me for sessions and they never followed through. You don’t want to treat vagaries as promises and just assume that someone who said they’d “definitely” book you in the future is going to come through. There’s a gambling term called “betting on the come,” which means that you may have a bad hand now, but you hope that things pick up and you’ll have the cards you need when the time comes. It’s basically whistling past the graveyard and hoping your luck will change when you need it most.
Bad idea. Do not, do not, DO NOT do this. It’s one thing to mentally determine how you’d spend this (X amount for a credit card bill, Y amount for a new pair of jeans, Z amount for dining out next month), you really don’t want to start solidly earmarking money that’s not even yours yet. Once you’ve been modeling for a while, you’ll generally get a good feel for which schools and groups are reliable, how much work you’ll average in a semester, etc. But you really, really need to resist the urge to think “okay, September’s usually busy, so I can assume I’ll pull in at least $300.”
Like I said: easy come, easy go :) Keep this in mind, and you’ll do all right!
When you get multiple bookings over the course of a few weeks or a few months, you’ll find yourself tempted, to (ahem) bank on that money to the point where you begin to consider it as good as yours. And proceed to start spending it in advance. This probably won’t happen to you after your first gig or two. It’ll most likely happen when your modeling career starts to take off and you find yourself working multiple times a month as opposed to once or twice every few months. Your popularity and demand will increase, and with all these bookings coming in, you may find yourself tempted to treat these upcoming sessions like the money’s already in your pocket.
I’m here to tell you this is generally a bad idea. Gigs can and do get canceled. In the past week, I’ve had one gig canceled due to low class enrollment (luckily, I was only on deck to model once for that class. I think there were one or two models who got screwed out of multiple sessions), and today, a drawing group canceled an upcoming session later this week (though I did get rebooked for later in the year).
And naturally, since one of these sessions was on the tail end of a long weekend, I figured I’d use that money in advance to splurge on some food and wine for the long holiday. After all, I reckoned, I’d be getting that money in cash in just a few days’ time.
It’s honestly no big deal, because these things happen, and you have to roll with the punches. No one owes you a living, and you’d be wrong to treat artists as such. But I realized that it’s a really good teaching moment: Don’t spend that money until it’s either in your hands, or until you’ve actually modeled for that class and know a check’s in the mail (and even then, you may want to wait until you have a check in hand).
It’s really, really tempting to start adding up that upcoming windfall of cash over the coming months and automatically make plans for it. Ever find a spare $20 in a pair of pants you haven’t worn for a while? Well, pretend that $20 is now several hundred dollars and instead of a pair of pants, it’s in the form of an email that says someone wants you to work for them three times in the next month. And now you’ll hopefully begin see where you find yourself thinking that money’s as good as yours. So why not spend some of it? After all, the email just said you were going to get three bookings.
Well, even if that gig doesn’t cancel, you could get sick. You could get stuck having to work late. There’s a whole host of reasons that you'd have to cancel, and you just can’t predict these things.
As I said in my last blog entry, you should view your modeling income as easy come, easy go. It’s just not a reliable enough source of income (for most people) to treat as steady money. I’ve been very lucky in the sense that I’ve only had a handful of gigs cancel since I’ve been doing this, and in most cases, I just got rescheduled later in the term.
But then, I’ve also had people promise to book me for sessions and they never followed through. You don’t want to treat vagaries as promises and just assume that someone who said they’d “definitely” book you in the future is going to come through. There’s a gambling term called “betting on the come,” which means that you may have a bad hand now, but you hope that things pick up and you’ll have the cards you need when the time comes. It’s basically whistling past the graveyard and hoping your luck will change when you need it most.
Bad idea. Do not, do not, DO NOT do this. It’s one thing to mentally determine how you’d spend this (X amount for a credit card bill, Y amount for a new pair of jeans, Z amount for dining out next month), you really don’t want to start solidly earmarking money that’s not even yours yet. Once you’ve been modeling for a while, you’ll generally get a good feel for which schools and groups are reliable, how much work you’ll average in a semester, etc. But you really, really need to resist the urge to think “okay, September’s usually busy, so I can assume I’ll pull in at least $300.”
Like I said: easy come, easy go :) Keep this in mind, and you’ll do all right!
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