Naked truth of modelling
Deni Bown became a life model as a broke single mother – and ended up loving it
What on earth made me become a nude model? It all began with a bank statement. I had exceeded my overdraft limit. This was serious – I was a single parent and, in the early 1980s, absent fathers weren’t obliged to pay maintenance. I already had one part-time job. Now I needed another. I reached for the local paper and turned to Situations Vacant. Among the usual ads for bar staff, shop assistants and so on was ‘Model required for Life Class’.
How embarrassing – but how else could I earn so much for doing what sounded like so little?
My call went through to the art department of our local college of further education. At my interview, I didn’t have to strip. The interviewer was a charming art teacher who, although male, didn’t so much as look me up and down. After a friendly and reassuring chat, the job was mine.
On that first nerve-racking day, I posed for a class of A-level students. Since then, I’ve tackled a wide variety of poses for men and women of all ages with a great range of artistic skills – even once in front of my nine-year-old son who was brought along because he had an unscheduled day off school for teacher training. It was awkward, but no one seemed to mind and I needn’t have worried. He spent the entire session drawing dinosaurs, singularly unmoved by the spectacle of his mum starkers in a room full of strangers.
Overcoming an instinctive shyness about being naked is the first challenge in becoming a life model. To be completely naked in front of people who stare at you unremittingly is a challenge. We may flatter ourselves while looking in the mirror. But when you’re holding a pose for 20 minutes at a time, there is no way you can pull in your tummy and stick out your chest, let alone maintain a seductive smile. It’s just you as you really are.
And that can be terrifying. I once heard of a model who began her first pose and couldn’t stop shaking. Another I know fainted on the spot. I got off lightly. My worst moment was one of sheer embarrassment when some teenagers managed to peer in through a window and started giggling.
The next big challenge is the actual posing. Some poses are far more demanding than others, either technically or because they are not in the least bit flattering. Standard poses – sitting, standing or lying motionless with head and limbs in one direction or another – weren’t usually too difficult, though I did once have to sit for 15 hours in the same position for an A-level exam. That was certainly an ordeal even though, mercifully, it was done over two and a half days and not in one long agonising stretch.
Some poses were more like performances. There were tricky balancing acts, twisting slow-motion sequences and repeated moves such as stepping up and down, lying on the floor and rolling over, and the odd bit of miming, such as drying myself with a towel – though I was of course perfectly dry to start with. The pose most often associated with an artist’s model – the sensuous lounge on plush upholstery – was what I did least often. There was seldom anything to lounge on.
Though my career – if I can call it that – as a life model started at the college, several similar jobs in various locations, including artists’ studios, came my way through word-of-mouth recommendations. People heard that I could keep as still as a statue while
managing to look more alive and not in absolute agony.
Being a life model in the state education system and the private sector were rather different experiences. Art teachers follow a syllabus that requires specific poses from week to week in the spartan setting of a classroom or assembly hall, with harsh lighting and electric heaters that produced more draught than warmth. Sitting for artists and art groups in their own studios was generally more relaxed and, thank goodness, warmer. They had completely flexible agendas, often rather lovely rooms with garden views, and some creature comforts, such as coffee breaks and lunches – fully clothed, I hasten to add. One artist used to hand me a glass of eau de vie at the end of a morning’s session – the perfect aperitif to revive a near-lifeless model.
What art teachers in colleges of further education lacked in terms of furniture – other than the standard-issue chair or bench – they made up for through imaginative use of makeshift props. This kept me on my toes and brought the best out of students who needed something to kickstart their artistic genius.
One strategy was to focus on the nude form by blurring the details. To that end I have posed behind an opaque screen, been draped in see-through muslin and wriggled into a stockinette tube of the kind used to encase pig carcasses. I once had the bones of a human skeleton, borrowed from the biology lab, surrealistically arranged alongside me in a similar position to my own. Another time, photos of paintings by Mondrian and Bridget Riley were projected on to me, their colours and patterns transforming me into a living work of art.
I was sketched in pencil, crayons, charcoal and chalk, washed in pen and ink and watercolours, rendered in oils and pastels and modelled in clay. Results varied as much as – if not more than – the materials. I have seen images of myself that left much to be desired: head too big/small; breasts not exactly where they should be; round-shouldered; squint-eyed; with a certain lack of proportion in length of legs/arms, size of feet/hands and number of digits.
After a while, my job became routine, like any other. There were occasional highlights, such as being told by a rather good artist that one of his paintings of me was hanging in the Royal Academy. I went to see the exhibition and was thrilled, especially when I bumped into someone who recognised me behind the anonymity of Seated Nude. I also felt flattered when a picture of me was sold.
I enjoyed the physicality. It takes strength, self-discipline and a certain amount of grace to freeze movement in a way that encourages observation of the body, rather than the person, and doing this well is quite satisfying. And I liked the people, from college students, evening-class attendees and talented – or not-so-talented – hobbyists to accomplished teachers and mentors who helped others master the complex skills of drawing, painting and sculpting the human body.
It boosted my confidence and I took on other part-time positions at the college, which in turn boosted the bank balance – win-win. Last but not least, the enforced motionlessness, without which I was always on the go, gave me thinking time and the courage to change direction.
And so I went out on a limb – ha-ha – and, after applying to Mrs Thatcher’s Enterprise Allowance Scheme, became a writer and photographer with an outline for my first book. Wearing nothing gave me everything.