I wasn’t really naked. I simply didn’t have any clothes on.
–Josephine Baker
After I left academia to study dance I also earned extra income by modeling in the nude for art classes. My rationale was simple: I am spending all this time and money developing strength and a beautiful carriage, so why not share it with the art world and get paid for it–something very unlikely to happen anytime soon in dance theater.
I received 10 dollars an hour for modeling, well beyond the minimum wage for 1970.
The Louisville School of Art, where I did most of my modeling, was in a lovely country setting outside of the city limits. The students, intensely serious about their work, were accustomed to seeing nude models up on a slightly elevated stage. The atmosphere was quiet and contemplative. Except for the occasional remark or suggestion from an equally engaged instructor, the only sounds were of pen and charcoal sweeping over sketch pads and canvas.
I might have been a little embarrassed the first time I took off my robe and stood before the 30 or 40 pairs of eyes, but I soon became accustomed to the process. Being cold was more of a concern than being naked. In winter there was an electric heater that burned one side of my body while the other side froze.
I soon found that it is also not easy sitting or standing or even lying still for perhaps up to an hour while being sketched. I had started a practice of yoga and meditation, which helped not only in posing, but also in detaching from my state of undress and the usual barrage of thoughts, such as: “Does everyone realize that my penis is not usually this small, it is just that fricking cold in here?!” To, “Do I have too much pubic hair or not enough?” Or, “What if I got an erection, like I used to in junior high school?”*
The more I modeled, the easier the process became. The instructors were often very complimentary of my ability to keep still for interminable amounts of time. Of course, there was some ego gratification. During one reclining pose, a lovely teacher commented that I looked like a leaf, freshly fallen from a tree. Her exact words. She soon became my favorite instructor.
All my life I have had difficulty being up in front of people talking or speaking. I would have bouts of anxiety about the smallest presentation, but here, there was none of that. I just had to show up…naked, exposed, detached…I could do this. In retrospect, I also see this choice of jobs as a convenient way to dissociate from myself, as I had learned much earlier with my fears of stage fright.
My favorite part of any class was the quick sketch. The instructor would ask me to slowly move into a variety of poses. The students were asked to draw as few lines as possible, to try and capture the essence of the shape in a very short period. Occasionally after class (with robe back on), I would walk around to see the work of the aspiring artists. This was always interesting to see myself as someone else saw me, whether flattering or not.
I must admit that I was a natural at modeling. Good enough that all the teachers wanted me to model for their classes. After having several months of modeling at the art school under my belt (irony intended), it happened that a visiting artist from New York would give an all-day workshop at the Louisville Downtown Public Library. He had asked local teachers if they would recommend anyone to model, for $15 an hour. They gave him my name and number. Too good to pass up.
When I arrived at the library that day, I quickly realized this was not the usual art class. These were bored housewives who thought they had some talent and were well-heeled enough to pay the price to work with a famous artist. There were no young art students. Like me, they were too poor to come up with the fees for something like this. I was relieved when I learned that I could model in a dance belt** rather than totally nude. My guess is that this probably made the women a little more comfortable as well, not to mention the librarians. However, even with the dance belt, I felt like I wanted to turn and run.
To make matters worse, I was to stand on a top of a three-foot square cube placed on one of the library tables. For those first few moments, I felt like my knees were going to buckle and I imagined either fainting or simply bowing out. Somehow, I managed to steel myself through those first few agonizing minutes and found some resolve to stand there for the remainder of the exercise. I attributed this to good dance training and the thought of how embarrassing it would be to fall on my face. After all, I was a professional. Soon after I chose to retire from modeling. The novelty had worn off and I felt I had taken this form of self-expression about as far as I wanted.
A year or so after I had ended my modeling career, a friend and I were in a restaurant near the old art school. The establishment was rather fancy but not too formal. At one point in the evening my friend got a slightly perplexed look on her face. She would look at me, then look over my shoulder at a charcoal drawing on the wall. “What?” I said, then turned around and looked closer at the artwork. The nude figure was drawn from the waist up and I quickly realized that I had been the model. This was a drawing of me! A part of me wanted to ask the patrons at a nearby table. “Excuse me, but what do you think of this drawing,” wondering if they would look at me and make the connection. But I was far too shy for that. I studied the sketch for a while. It did capture something that aroused my curiosity and now I only wish that I could look at a dozen more drawings like that and ask myself, “Who was this guy?”
*I’ve recently been enlightened that this pubescent phenomenon in today’s parlance is called a “no reason boner.”
**For the mildly curious and uninitiated: A dance belt for male dancers could be thought of as a corset with a thong. The idea is to show off those stunning buns of steel and trim any lower belly fat, while compressing the genitals into an impossibly small compartment. Most men find them very uncomfortable and like most women who have ever worn a corset or girdle, you are happy when you can slip out of it. When I danced with the Louisville Ballet, we had a guest male dancer imported from New York for the lead roles in the Nutcracker. I was impressed with his dancing, but more so with his fur lined dance belt.
by Alan Hundley
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