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:

• 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.