All the Waters of the Earth

Chapter 6: Life Drawing

On Saturday morning, I arrived about fifteen minutes early to the art school, greeting the professor in the otherwise empty classroom. The first session of a new life drawing class began today, and the professor had booked me as a model for the whole eight weeks. I arranged for babysitting for Rob during the times that the class met when I had him on the weekends, but today I was free to do whatever I wanted because he was with his dad.

The huge, airy room was arranged with an empty space located in the center of the room for the model to pose, circled by easels staggered all around. Every art student would have a different view and be drawing from a different angle. I had been to this classroom before, so after I chatted with the professor for a few moments, I headed for a small room off to the side to undress and wait until it was time for me to model. I always wore a white, waffle pattern robe to hang out in.

Even though I had done this before, I felt a familiar sense of nervousness and anticipation about the public nudity that I engaged in with this job. In some ways, having dozens of pairs of eyes on me was nerve-wracking. But in other ways, I felt incredibly liberated doing this. There I would be, standing before them, or posing in some position, naked as a baby, allowing them to look at me, to record me.

These were art students, training their hands to record what their eyes saw. They were focused on lines and curves, on spacial arrangements and on proportion. They didn't really see me as a person, but as an object to draw. A beautiful object, perhaps, and one with the flaws of humanity. But still, it did not feel personal. I felt separate from them.

The way that it worked normally, is that the class would do a series of quick sketches while I held various positions for as long as I could. Most of the time, the students used pencils, charcoal, pastels, or a special type of crayons, depending on the assignment. Sometimes this professor would have them just draw the inside of me, the weight, not focusing on the outer lines. Other times, the professor would have them draw the movement, in scribbled lines.

And sometimes I would recline or sit on a chair and stay still, often with my eyes closed, while they draw me for lengthy periods of time, which was what the professor had asked for today.

Again, I felt a freedom and a beauty being part of this process. I rarely saw the finished products, although sometimes the students would show me. I had experienced every emotion in seeing myself as a nude, from gasping at how accurately they captured me, to cringing at the focus on a flaw, to trying not to laugh at something particularly amateur. But still, it was lovely to see people engage in creativity.

It was important to me to create something or assist in the creation of something that did not exist before it came out of me, whether it was a phrase on a page, or, here, as the subject of a drawing or a later painting. If I really thought about it, all of nature is creating all of the time: children are growing inside women's wombs, plants are dividing cells and creating new growth, and mountains are being built up, as in the lava in Hawaii, or eroded down. All around us are creations, and allowing the artistic process, without judgment, without critique, to me, was essential to the experience of being human.

As I waited in the ante room, wearing the white robe, I heard the class file in and get settled. After a few minutes of introduction by the professor, she quietly came over and opened the door.

Walking to the center of the room, my eyes down modestly, I stood in front of the students, and took off my robe, draping it on the chair that was now in the center. Then I sat down sideways in the chair, twisting elegantly in the seat so that my front pressed up against the back of the chair, my knees were together, my legs bent, my toes pointed and together. I rested my arms on the back of the chair and set my head in my hands. And then I held this position, letting them draw the curves of my spine, the hourglass of my waist, the flesh of my ass.