The Art of Sitting Still

Life models don’t like to undress in front of their class – it would ‘sexualise’ what they do. It would turn them into strippers. They prefer to undress behind a screen, and reappear in a robe. Towelling, usually. As life-model Rosemarie Orwin drags the hair off her face, and ties it back into a bun, she reveals wonderful cheek bones. And a long, graceful neck. She discusses this morning’s poses with Neil Drury, the art tutor, and prepares to loosen the ties around her robe

Orwin became a life model after she took redundancy from WH Smith. But she was canny, and approached the new job with a corporate sensibility. On her website (http://www.modelled.me.uk), she thought to offer life modelling “Away Days”, to compete with go-karting and clay pigeon shooting. And residential life modelling classes, from anywhere in the South of England. The website now gets 40,000 hits a day, and she books an average of 10 jobs a week.

This morning, she is working in Sunningwell – opposite the village duck pond, and the 13th century Norman Church. With its gracious, high windows, and polished wooden floors, Sunningwell School of Art is an inspiring place for Orwin to work. Well, let’s be honest, it’s got central heating. This pretty little village in Oxfordshire was where she got her first naked job. She prefers to call it ‘nude’. “Nude is more classical” says Orwin. “Naked is more sexual.”

Orwin removes her robe. If there are flickers of desire (there is something erotic about her ankle chain, and her tummy piercing), they soon vanish. And become something else. Orwin is doing short poses as a warm-up, and the artists have to concentrate. It’s like they can hear the words of Delacroix – “If you are not skillful enough to sketch a man falling out of a window during the time it takes him to get from the fifth story to the ground, you will never be able to produce monumental work.”

It’s odd, being a life model. You stand somewhere between ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture, between nude and naked, and between art and pornography. But life modelling used to be considered the highest ambition of art – in Ancient Greece, artists who specialised in capturing the nude human form, such as Zeuxis, had their names embroidered on their garments in threads of gold. Clearly, something has happened along the way…

Art these days is all about the weird and the strange – think rotting sharks, and sculptures made from Vaseline. And the idea of life modelling seems to have become a bit awkward. “I remember working as a photographer’s life model” says Gary Owen. “But he didn't want anybody to know he was shooting nudes. So I was bundled into a wardrobe while he took delivery of his post.” The ‘art’ is the end result. But everything else – including the making of the art – is, well, a bit embarrassing.

The first of Orwin’s three ten-minute poses involves her standing, feet apart, with one arm up, slightly bent back, and one arm down. It’s not natural. And if you saw the pose, on a canvas, you would think ‘What the hell happened to her?’ But that’s not the point – it’s about the model showing something “exciting” to the class. Something “challenging”. The class are clearly excited and challenged. In everything from paint to charcoal.

To talk to the artists, what distinguishes Orwin from other life models is her serenity. Her rib cage rises and falls as she breathes, but otherwise she’s completely still. And she stays still by focussing on something that’s not going to move. This morning, it’s the corner of a pane of glass. There is a clock on the wall – but, of course, Orwin can’t look at it. Even though she likes to know how long to she needs to keep up the pose. “Okay” says the tutor. “Five minutes to go”.

Those drawing figuratively are sit close – they hold up their pencils, and use them to measure off proportions of Orwin’s figure. The more abstract artists are sitting further away. One artist says she’s planning to be expressive for Orwin’s short poses, and more disciplined later. “Have I made her head look too small?” she asks the tutor. The tutor comes over to study her drawing. “Well, Rosemarie does have a small head” he says. “One more minute.”

Life modelling isn’t a job for those of a sensitive disposition. Small head aside, Orwin is perfectly proportioned. She doesn’t suck in her stomach. It wouldn’t be practical for the longer poses. And, actually, she doesn’t need to. “My memory of the pictures that my brother used to bring back from art college” she says, “were of round ladies. Always voluptuous. When I first started life modelling I thought I wouldn’t get much work.” How wrong she was.

Which is not to say that artists always want to draw models that are perfectly proportioned. Rolls of fat are fun. And so are deformities – after all, the artists are trying to capture the entire human condition. But female models are always busier than male. Young are busier than old. And thin are busier than fat. That’s life. Which is why Orwin has managed to achieve what very few manage to achieve in the world of life modelling – full-time status.

There is a perception that it’s an easy way to earn a little extra cash. After all, you only have to take your clothes off and lie around. Anyone can do it. But Euan Uglow, the figurative painter, reckoned it was a very particular talent. He said the best life models were either very intelligent or very stupid. They were the ones with the inner resources or the utter vacuity to remain completely still despite the muscle cramps – who created a world of their own in their heads. The mediocre ones just fidgeted.

It’s certainly not a job for everyone. The writer Quentin Crisp spent the war years as a life model at Derby School of Art, and described it as “like being a civil servant – except that you’re naked”. But Sean Connery enjoyed it. So did Cherie Blair, who posed for Uglow’s Striding Nude, Blue Dress. And so did Kate Moss, who modelled for Lucian Freud after she revealed in an interview that posing for him was one of her few remaining ambitions.

And the “little extra cash”? How little? It’s unlikely to be very much more than that. The pay for life models isn’t as good as catwalk models – even catalogue models. It’s £10 an hour, and that rate is only for those at the very top of their profession. Earlier this year, life models in Italy decided to strike for better pay, “professional recognition” and full-time contracts. To date, it’s had little effect. And fears that the bottom is about to fall out of the Italian life model market seem to be unfounded.

For life models, there are no holidays, sick pay or pensions. There are no dental plans. Accidents are regularly caused by badly assembled props, and models are forever complaining of aches, pains, and varicose veins, caused by art tutors demanding impractical poses. But the profession is so badly regulated (there aren’t even any rules on whether touching models is acceptable) that getting the health and safety people interested has been impossible.

Most models are recruited through the Register of Artists’ Models. But there are other ways. Spencer Tunick, for instance, recruits for his mass installations through his website. They are asked to register their skin tone – from petal pink to chocolate brown – and leave their contact details. Shortly before a Tunick ‘happening’, volunteers receive an e-mail with instructions about the time and place, and a release form to print out and sign. A few weeks after a happening has happened, every participant receives a signed print of the installation.

But Orwin is part of a more classical tradition. And the long pose – which takes her through to tea and biscuits – lasts 35 minutes. Based on a drawing by Raphael, it involves her sitting, with legs crossed and one knee pulled into her body. The tutor pulls her round to recapture – as exactly as possible – the pose from last week. But, last week, Orwin complained her foot kept slipping forward. So, to avoid putting her pose under undue pressure, he sticks a lump of bluetack under her toes.

Orwin finds her focus, and begins to pose. With all its stillness. When she’s working, life model Cecilia Lundqvist likes to put herself into a trance-like state. “The physical side to it comes from training and a knowledge of your own body” she says. “The psychological side is another thing. All models have their different tricks. I know quite a few who simply fall asleep when keeping a long reclining pose. Others do mental conjugations of French verbs, or simply daydream.”

But, with some poses, that’s simply not an option. Life model Martin Ireland was asked by a sculpture student to be an angel, flying through the air. He got a mountaineering harness, and swung from the ceiling. On another occasion, he had to wrestle with another model. “I felt a bit apprehensive” he says, “posing in a naked wrestle with someone who was much larger than me and covered in tattoos. We covered each other with baby oil and were sliding over each other. It was very erotic and we got rather carried away.”

Which begs another question – a question that’s peculiar to male life models. Does the excitement ever get too much? “It’s only happened a couple of times” says Ireland, “and on one occasion I managed to get into another crouching pose before anyone really noticed. The tutor touched me on the buttock, by accident, when pointing out something in the rather overcrowded art room, and things started to go a bit haywire. It had a mind of it’s own so I had to change the pose pretty quickly.”

Male life models are just as worried about the opposite problem – let’s call it "shrinkage". In Ancient Greece, it simply wasn’t a problem. Artists preferred to paint men with smaller genitals because it inferred a good healthy lifestyle – clearly, lots of swimming in the sea and braving the great outdoors. If men had larger genitals, their "life force" would have further to travel and become stale or diminished. Which made Ancient Greek men feel a little bit less daunted about baring all.

At the end of a session, artists often like to photograph the model and continue on their work at home. But, at Sunningwell, they reckon it then ceases to be life drawing in its truest sense – they are copying from a two-dimensional image, rather than drawing from life. Besides, Orwin doesn’t like to be photographed without specific consent. It’s a way of getting her modelling services on the cheap. And, without getting the artists to sign contracts, who knows were the photographs will end up?

“And that’s tea” says the tutor, who draws round Orwin’s feet with chalk. That way she can resume the same position after the break. He then frees her toes from the bluetack, and draws on her right arm– in biro – to mark where her left hands was resting. “As soon as tea comes,” says Orwin, “the robe goes back on, and I have a look round at people’s work. And I have a biscuit.” But only one. With 40,000 hits a day, she wants to keep her body looking just like it does on the website.