Live Nude Woman

Today, November 29, 2010, roughly fourteen years after I first conceived of the idea, I did it! I took my clothes off in front of a room full of mostly svelte college students and contorted my body in various poses for nearly three hours. My mom would be so proud that I’m putting my Master’s degree to good use (ha ha!).

Now, for those of you who might think I’m out of my freaking mind, in some ways you would be right. Maybe you do have to be a little bit, of a different mindset to do what I did.

I could tell you “desperate times call for desperate measures” and my unemployment is about to run out and all that jazz, but the truth is, as long as there isn’t a mirror in front of me, I’d much rather be naked than clothed almost any day of the week, in almost any situation. I loathe, loathe, loathe clothing and I dream of a world that is warm enough for all of us, yes, ALL OF US, to run around NAKED, without a stitch of clothing on, ever-unless we get cold or are getting sunburned or maybe just feel like covering up. But the point is, in my ideal world, clothes would be like scarves and mittens and costume jewelry-frivolous but permissible to wear if one wanted to, yet certainly not required.

This view is by no means endorsed by anyone else in my family, so please don’t think that they are a bunch of self lovin’ nudists like I am-that couldn’t be further from the truth!

In addition to loving being naked (except for when I’m cold), as an artist, I am completely enamored with the naked human form. Probably always have been. Although as a kid I do recall being horribly torn-both aroused and embarrassed at my Aunt’s nude female art work she so brazenly had displayed around her house. I mean she was single and all, so did that make her a…lesbian…? And the art work aroused me…so did that make me…a lesbian too? And with the exception of “The David” I never saw any nude male artwork and really, his bits are covered up by a damn fig leaf or something, so that was hardly a turn on! Such confusing thoughts for a young kid, and of course we never talked about these things in my “very open household”!

I distinctly remember the first time I saw my first naked person, that I was supposed to draw I mean. It was actually a rather traumatic experience for me. It was autumn of 1996 during my college Life Drawing class, which, after this experience I took to calling my “Naked People Drawing Class.” Our first model was a man.

Now, I’d seen a few naked men before, even one or two with my consent, but even I was so stunned at the depth of my ignorance and denial as “Mr. Incredibly Tanned Ass” took off his rob and mounted the modeling platform in the middle of the room, I didn’t even recognize myself. I’m nearly certain I turned a billion shades of red and prayed for anything in the world…a tsunami, an earthquake, a sudden death in my family, my immediate and untimely death right there on the spot, a giant black hole to swallow me up…anything to happen to me so that I did not a) have to be in that room and b)that whatever he did, however he positioned himself, that I didn’t have to see that god-awful thing between his legs!

I sorta got one wish granted and I think you can figure out which one that was. I was so appalled at my reaction to his nudity and so angry at my Professor for not warning us that the model was going to be male that I spent most of the class shaking with rage and seriously considering that I should either drop the class or get some psychological help. That night, my drawings were for shit.

There was something in the realness of it all, in my first experience seeing a naked man who didn’t want something sexual from me, which completely unnerved me. I had no idea what to do with a nude man standing before me whose sole purpose was to teach me how the human body worked, how it looked in various poses. On some level, after the initial class, I realized this was a huge part of what made me tremble with rage and with time I was able to relax and even enjoy drawing other models, even male models and their penis’s. Sometimes, though, all these years later, I can still recall how I felt when I saw my first nude male model…his great tanned ass… and the occasional glimpses of his little penis hanging limply between his balls and I feel a mixture of sadness at my initial reaction and an intense desire not to illicit the same responses in students when I pose.