Lessons From a Nude Figure Model

When I would stand up there, watching people watch me, draw me, scratch me out and start anew, get angry and tear me up, I realized it wasn’t me. The longer the class went on, the less embodied, but more myself, I felt.

//

I started nude modeling in college. What a typical time to begin a job with this uniform. It found root in a friend’s simple art project: she had just switched from math to art major. She was trying to justify why she did it, to her professors and to herself, and started scouting bodies for a nude photo project.

I was one of her friendly, easy-going guinea pigs, and had been recovering from an eating disorder (you can read about this poetic process, which doesn’t end here by the way). It all sounded like a good challenge to me at the time—she was helping us make art of and find the beauty in this otherwise disordered body.

A photo I took of myself a little while after participating in this friend’s project. I can’t get in contact with her to ask for permission to use her photos, so I won’t. But this photo is all mine, inspired by the experience she helped me have.

Friend’s photo project, done. Me, my body — being naked in front of a camera and someone telling me what to do––done, exhilarating. Freeing. I tried not to look at the photos when they came…