Penises!

Yesterday was the Guild's model marathon, and as a new model it behooved me to participate--it's an opportunity to be exposed to lotsa artists who might want to book me, and it also takes care of my "community service" obligation to the Guild.

It turned out to be a lot of fun. I could only do the first half, as I was scheduled to cater in the afternoon, but next time I'll try to do the whole day. I met a bunch of my colleagues, finally, and got to see them work--people do some very cool stuff on the stand. There were four stands set up--one for long poses, one for twenty minute poses, one for five and ten minute poses, and one for one and two minute gestures. A stand might have one model, or as many as four. There were dozens of artists there, all drawing away like maniacs and eating the snacks we sold to raise more money for the Guild.

I started out on the long pose stand doing a double model pose with a guy. This is the third time I've worked a double with a male model in two weeks, after years of being solo on the stand; it's interesting for a lot of reasons, not the least of which being that some models (not all) try to use the opportunity to create a pose with some interaction, or even a little emotional narrative, but without being overtly sexual. But there's the whole matter of being in physical contact with this other person, holding perfectly still, and trying hard not to think too much about the naked-and-touching thing. Last week I laid with my head in my partner's lap, trying not to think about having my hair down and touching a part of him my hair hasn't touched on anybody lately; yesterday if I shifted my eyes I was staring right at this stranger's (meaningful) equipment and wondering if he shaved, or just wasn't particularly furry. When I was an art student, I always had some trouble drawing men. How can I put this? I hadn't spent that much time looking at flaccid penises, so they were a challenge to draw. My drawings, which might be very precise around the face/hands/feet, tended to have this... blank spot. I guess I'm not the only one. The Guild regularly books a lot more female model jobs than males (about 70% to 30%), so I gather a lot of artists just prefer drawing women, for whatever reason. Which is a shame--there are some great guy models out there, and I got to see them work yesterday.

Anyway, another really nice thing about sharing the stand is that if you know your personal pose isn't great from every angle, the artists do have another model to look at. When I went over to do short poses with two or three other people at a time, it was a total blast.

I've been thinking a lot lately about the "inner game" of modeling, now that I'm doing it so much and for new people. I have a lot of ideas about that, but I have to get down to City College to do my second drawing class of the day. Yeehaw!