The naked truth
00:00 am 11/08/05
JOHN WIEDENHOEFT
jwiedenhoeft@madison.com
A UW-Madison art class uses nude models, which is a common occurrence in any university's life drawing course.
(JOSEPH W. JACKSON III ï¿1/2 State Journal)
"OK, John, whenever you're ready."
UW-Madison art professor Pat Fennell calls to me behind a closed door. I stand nearly naked and alone in a small storage room on the sixth floor of the Humanities Building.
Behind me hang two skeletons and to my right is a latex- covered mannequin with mismatched eyes. It is lifelike enough to have startled me when I entered this de facto "getting naked" room, and the mannequin's removable male crotch lies askew on a chair.
Fennell gave me a folded sheet to sit on for hygenic purposes. I use it as a shield for my most private area. My hand is on the door.
I am about to pose nude for so 20 or so UW students - all strangers - so they can draw me. Then they'll post their work on the sixth floor of the Humanities Building's architectural maze.
Why am I doing this job? I'm not an exhibitionist. I don't even particularly like being nude. I get cold easily and I'm usually the last person in a room to take off his coat. The answer: It's a part-time job paying $13 per hour.
So I push open the door to the class "Art 212: Life Drawing I." •
Posing Room 6221 of Humanities Building is brightly lit. The walls are white. A model platform is in the middle of the room, surrounded by students at their easels. Anatomy posters hang on the walls and there is the constant sound of rushing air.
I set my sheet down and prepare to sit on a platform stool for the first of four 2-hour sessions. Fennell introduces me by my first name to the students and we begin with a 25-minute pose. When I sit down, my legs involuntarily shut like a vice, but I force them open and try to sit with a casual grace.
It doesn't work.
There is nervousness in the room that is not entirely my own. Maybe it's getting acclimated to a new model. Or maybe it's the fact that some students are still working on other projects and their eyes are glued to other work. Nearly all of the students are hidden from me. I catch movement out of the corner of my eye as heads poke out like snake tongues from behind the easels. I hear the sound of charcoal on paper.
Fennell is outspoken and apologetic. The room's temperature is variable but not unbearable. In order to keep the students focused (and, she confides to me later, sometimes to shock them out of their comfort zone), she often reads to them. Today she is delivering what she calls her "anti-theory rant"- there are excerpts of an Amy Tan article mocking those who try to find an underlying symbolic theme in her work, and Billy Childish dismissing artists who would put concept before craft.
It's quite interesting and keeps my mind occupied as I sit and try to remain motionless.
Fennell also gives practical advice like, "If there is a part of your drawing that you like looking at - leave it alone. That means it's finished. If there's an area that your eye avoids, that's the part that needs work."
She often asks me if I need anything and always refers to me as "John." I'm never "the model."
For a few moments I think this might actually be the easiest job in the world. That's when fear sets in. Yes, fear. It creeps up. Its power is nearly absolute.
My friend, Evan, who recommended the job to me told me about it. He said it was one of the most difficult parts of nude modeling. I didn't really take him seriously when he explained it, but I should have. This fear is very specific and it can only happen to male models. The thought that goads is this: What if some crazy hiccup of biology happens?
This is when I begin to envy the crotchless mannequin. I'm worried about an erection. The experience does not arouse me, but a university art class is not a clinical environment.
I stand for the second pose and I immediately become alarmed. Fennell has a four-foot, bright red horse rider's crop. It turns out to be a pointer that she uses as a guide to help the students get my proportions correct. Still, she wields it with a mixture of embarassment and amusement - the first day ends uneventfully with two easy poses of my choice.
During one of them I notice that the room has a skylight as well as a footlight. I can see people going by on the sidewalk many stories below. •
The next sittings After the first class, the students are more comfortable with me and turn their easels so their heads are only turning sideways now and not darting in and out. Fennell chastises one female student for gazing at me too long without drawing.
Drawings of me are up on the wall just before the room's entrance. I glance at them. They are student assignments and not masterpieces by any means. But some of them feel as if they offer more realism and insight to me than a photo.
During my poses, I don't make eye contact and constantly envision myself wading into a pool of freezing water. So far, so good.
When Fennell isn't reading she is moving about the room energetically - admonishing and encouraging.
On the fourth sitting, there is a new twist. When I emerge from the "un-dressing" room, Fennell nervously brandishes a samurai sword and tells the class to be careful because it is extremely sharp.
The platform is pushed up against one of the walls and a chair has been placed on it almost like a throne. There are a few mood lights and some props on the platform. As I approach, Fennell shifts the sword from shoulder to shoulder and asks me if I've ever heard of "Body Farm." (I hadn't.) She's excited because she wants to do a pose for a Halloween class that mimics corpses.
I take my place in the chair, mimicking what I think a weary, naked, but very alive, ruler would resemble.
Fennell places the sword at my feet and begins to read.
Her first story is about plastic surgeons practicing their craft on severed heads. The heads are in basting pans. I glance down at the samurai sword and take notice of the other prop for the first time. It is a basting pan. In it is a severed doll's head on a wooden block.
Later, she switches stories. It starts off innocently enough. The narrator is visiting Japan and goes to a Japanese bath where he is naked in front of a large number of people.
I identify with him.
As the narrator wades into the bath and its warm waters, my own mental pool begins to warm. Outside of my mind nothing is happening, but my defenses against my physical-reaction fear are crumbling.
And that's when the story's narrator spies the electric bath. As its name implies, this is a bath with an electric current running through it. The narrator contemplates trying it.
Outwardly I stare at the bottom of the clock as I have for the last 50 minutes. My Adam's apple jumps slightly.
As Fennell reads on, the narrator approaches the bath, and I let my eyes shift slightly. I chart the quickest path to the room where my clothes are waiting.
He reaches the bath and lowers himself in. In the story, the narrator's body explodes in pleasure and pain. In Room 6221, my body barely shifts then relaxes.
Today, I think I may be underpaid. But I'll be back for more sessions later this semester.
Linear Mode
