WHY WE STRIP FOR ART’S SAKE
Life models reveal reasons for stripping off for artists
DISROBING in front of a room full of other people intently staring at you is way out of most people’s comfort zone. But for Kate, who poses nude for life drawing classes, it’s almost preferable to squeezing into a teeny-tiny bikini on the beach.
And for Meg the taking your clothes off thing has proved an overnight confidence-builder and an enriching life experience that has very little to do with nakedness. As the 22-year-old says: “If you can stand in a room naked in front of people you can do anything.”
Both women have modelled for artists as part of the Cardiff Life Models classes, which were held in the city regularly until the pandemic hit. While Meg, a student from Treforest, is an old hand at the modelling scene having done it for more than a year, Kate, 37, is relatively new to it and has posed only a couple of times.
Meg, a confident “typical Cancerian” who exudes kindness both down the phone and through the camera, started posing “on a whim” for a bit of extra cash. The £20 per hour certainly comes in handy while she strives for experiences that are “outside the box” and are “fun and different”.
Kate, who has a quiet confidence in a very different way, can understand the fear that comes with taking your clothes off in a room full of people. “I think that’s a legitimate fear if you haven’t eased yourself in with a bit of skinny-dipping or maybe being in an environment with other naked people, which we don’t get a chance to do as Brits,” she said.
They’ve each got their own reasons for stepping out unclothed but both have the same admirable – enviable, even – take on the naked human form.
Meg started modelling after chatting to a friend who’d also just got involved in posing naked. Saying she wanted a bit of extra cash, the friend suggested she get in touch with Andy Lamb, the man behind Cardiff Life Models.
Th refreshingly open-minded chiropractic student oozes self-confidence and self-awareness, not in a boastful way but in a gently encouraging way that makes you wonder why you have all those body hangups in the first place.
“I was a bit scared at first,” said Meg. “But once I’d done it I felt great and so confident. This is something that’s an enriching part of my life – it’s like something that makes you scared but times 10.
The first time was nerve-racking, Meg admitted. “I got there really early,” she said.
“I really like to be on time. I found the room where I was going first and then I tried to sit and relax in reception. I went up at an appropriate time with 15 minutes to spare to get changed into my robe.
“The one thing you do in life modelling is you always wear your robe when you’re not in a pose. If there was a golden rule I’d say that’s it.
“Say you go round someone’s table to look at what they’d done so far and you’ve got appendages dangling around, unclothed, then it’s not very nice for someone to try and maintain conversation and you’re just standing there in the buff. It’s not the done thing.”
Over time Meg has evolved not just her confidence but also her ability to hold a room and guide artists.
“You are a bowl of fruit; you’re not a naked person,” she said. “You’re just the human equivalent of a bowl of fruit to draw or sketch – thinking like that helps with any anxiety.”
Meg enjoys seeing the energy and focus in the room as the artists work away. The classes, held in the Little Man coffee shop in Cardiff, have a halfway break where there’s coffee, tea, sometimes wine. She also enjoys posing for students at Merthyr College and immersing herself in the “uniting” learning process.
Meg has her own creative streak and says art and her medical degree go “hand in hand”.
“I’ve got to the point with my anatomy where I’m having a vision of a skeleton there because I’ve looked at it so much, even though I’m seeing someone as a fully-formed human being with skin and muscles.
“There’s a nice crossover between the art and my course: life drawing is always going to be the human body and that’s what I know very well.”
Drawing the human form is actually pretty difficult, especially if you’re a creative painter or drawer. “You look at
the model more than the page because if you start looking at the page you go in your own direction – your brain naturally does that. You think you know what goes where but the actual point of life drawing is to look at the model,” Meg said. “I think that makes life drawing more of a discipline.”
She does get different reactions from people when she tells them what she does in her spare time. “Some say it’s quite a brazen thing to do,” she laughed. “But I don’t think of it as being brazen. I’ve never thought about it in a negative way.”
What mostly stops people is fear of the unknown, she said. “It’s not about nakedness. Everybody homes in on the nakedness but that’s not what it’s about.”
Kate already knew Andy through his outdoor walking group and as a fine art graduate and had attended some of the life drawing classes he ran as an artist to “keep her hand in”.
But on one warm summer’s day last year, during an artist retreat on Flatholm Island, she took the plunge and ended up on the other side of the canvas: “Andy needed a second model and I just thought it was an idyllic setting and it was really warm and outdoors and an escape from reality,” said Kate. “I didn’t really think too much about it. I don’t think I’m really comfortable in my body but that didn’t really occur to me, more because it’s for an artistic purpose rather than ogling.”
Her second experience – in a classroom setting – was more testing, she said, but she noticed one unexpected side effect. “Everyone becomes more friendly towards you,” she said.
“People are more relaxed in talking to you. I mentioned it to Andy and he said people can feel like they own a bit of you because they’ve captured you in their drawing pads.”
Kate is not a “naked ambassador” by any stretch of the imagination, she said, but she has been known to indulge in an occasional bit of skinny-dipping.
“I find swimwear so unflattering so I wouldn’t want to go to the leisure centre naked but I would much prefer to be on a nudist beach where no-one’s wearing anything and it’s just so much more comfortable than trying to squeeze yourself into a sexy bikini.
“Maybe it’s because it’s unsexualised, even though you’re completely naked, when it’s art. It’s not necessarily a ‘saucy’ thing but maybe there are types of clothing and situations that make it more sexy or make you more aware of that element.”
Even so, being intently studied with nowhere to hide must seem a bit daunting? “It is funny being a model and watching the people who are drawing you,” admitted Kate.
“They are not averting their eyes, they are looking at every part of your body, it really is a study, which is quite revealing in perhaps a deeper sense than just being naked.
“At no point do you feel sexualised or objectified, it doesn’t even matter about your gender – you’re just there to be drawn and studied for the skin that you’re in.”
Taking all your clothes off, no matter what the setting, must first overcome the part of our socialised brains that screams: “Please don’t look at me, I’m naked.” It’s something we probably all recognise and what stops us ever wandering around in the buff.
Kate explained how she overcomes that. “Like anything else you’re scared of, do it step by step, get yourself there. There’s just that moment of reveal, as it were, initially and that’s the biggest hurdle – that bit when you first show everyone your flesh.
“You just have to focus on a corner and I just let my mind go blank,” she explained. “I’m still a novice so I’m trying my hardest not to move, which sounds like it’s the easiest thing in the world but if you’re in a slightly more dramatic pose it’s actually quite tricky.
“It’s so interesting – you have an image of yourself in your mind and then someone has captured something completely different on paper. It’s really interesting to see yourself. I don’t know if that makes me narcissistic.”