Having completed my tenure as coordinator at Justice Action, I have been doing some life modelling work for extra cash. Life modelling entails doing *nothing*, and doing it gracefully. For up to 30 minutes at a time, and up to 4 hour shifts, I must keep absolutely still, in a position which artists will find inspiring to draw, paint, sculpt, or just perv on. Yes, it's in the nude most of the time.
There is a certain amount of pain involved, when muscles get tight or limbs fall asleep. I have to concentrate on holding the pose, and not letting anything drift, and trying not to fall asleep. Sometimes models will sleep, but I try not to for several reasons: 1) everybody looks like an idiot when they sleep. The muscles relax, and the pose tends to be boring, not to mention the druel, and 2) when you wake up, it really is your worst nightmare of being naked in a room full of strangers staring at you.
Artists tend to forget that there is a difference between the life model they are painting this week and the bowl of bananas they painted last week. Sometimes they forget to look at the time, and leave you there for longer than agreed, or the room will be too cold, or - my favourite - they use turps in their oil paintings.
In many of the studios, there is little or no ventillation. The artists are all thoroughly marinated, so they don't mind it, but I get dizzy and nauseous within the first hour. I was doing a 4-hour pose last week, and two of the artists were using turps. One of the other artists had brought odourless solvent, which does the same job, but without the smell. I requested that they use that instead. They protested, saying that in *this* studio, they use turps, and that I should have been told this before I was hired.
I replied that I was not told, and that they should use the odourless solvent, otherwise they would be painting a portrait of the model vomiting into the brush cleaning sink. One of them was so offended that he packed up his gear and left. The other kindly switched to watercolours.
