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December 22, 2000
The National Arts Club--an
exclusive haunt in an even more exclusive neighborhood—offers a two-hour
drawing class every Monday night. Rising five stories above the street, the
old stone building, on the southern border of Gramercy Park, is made as much
of posh and polish as it is of pillars and porches. Outside, flickering
lamplights provide a warm, 19th Century glow about the place.
Inside, big portraits of famous American writers, painters, actors, and
musicians (along with even bigger portraits of club benefactors) adorn the old
burgundy walls. The dark stained staircase creaks, as Jack Kerouac would say,
with the "warp of old wood." And, rather oddly, a giant, Easter
Island-sized bronze representation of George Herbert Walker Bush’s head
dominates a recessed parlor on the first floor. Using the name of a club
member with whom I am friends, I was able to get past the front door and into
the class.
Six of us showed up that night with pencils and paper
in hand. Four men, two women. The teacher and the model brought the total
number of people assembled in the small third-floor room to eight.
The model was in her early twenties. Plain faced.
Bright white skin. Alabaster I guess you’d call it. She had short black hair
with bangs cut straight across. She was slender, but not athletic. A fine
form, well-suited for the task at hand. She had a tattoo on the small of her
back. Of course. (I’ve found that it doesn’t take much to convince a girl
with a tattoo to get naked. In this case, she got ten bucks per student.)
On the surface, a drawing class is like a strip club.
A young girl comes into a room full of ogling strangers, gets up on a stage,
and takes her clothes off for money. But in reality, there wasn’t any sexual
excitement in the air. Why was that? Well, there was no alcohol involved. That
makes a big difference. And there was no music. The club itself has the aura
of restraint and dignity. It is more akin to a museum than a brothel. The girl
didn’t swing on a pole, nor did she open her legs. In fact, she struck no
provocative poses at all. There was no interaction with the students. Not even
eye contact. She was in her own world, detached from the rest of us. (The fact
that the girl kept yawning reinforced that.) Once, when she did inadvertently
make eye contact with me, a bolt of tension shot through my body and I became
hugely self-conscious.
I can’t draw well. So I made a game of drawing her
as if she were a collection of ovals. Then rectangles. Finally triangles.
Once, I made an attempt at realism. But then the instructor came over and
suggested I pay more attention to the shadow under her breast. This gave me a
case of the giggles, so I returned to my abstract interpretations. (In the
light of day, the word "breast" sounds funny. At least to me it
does. While wrestling in the dark with someone you love, one often says
invokes the B-word with complete seriousness. "You’ve got the nicest
breasts in the whole world!" But in the light of day, it just sounds
funny. "Breast" sounds so formal. Like "nude" versus
"naked." "Breast" and "nude" make me laugh. I’m
laughing right now. I don’t know why, but I can’t help it.)
To put an end to these embarrassing giggles, I
focused on her feet for the rest of the class. I stared at those feet for an
hour, scarcely ever looking above the calves. It’s hard to draw a foot, and
I can’t say that I mastered it. But I was glad I stuck with the feet. Had I
intensely focused my attention on her goings-on upstairs, I think I would have
felt that I’d somehow violated the woman. Plus, I felt that looking too long
at her "area" would be in some way cheating on my girlfriend. But to
stare at feet, all be they naked feet, seemed harmless.
At the end of class, I gathered my best sketches and
stuffed them into my computer bag. After stopping for a drink at Pete’s
Tavern—"The Place O. Henry Made Famous"—I boarded the PATH train
for my journey home across the Hudson. Standing near the exit door, reading a
magazine, was a familiar young girl. It was strange to see her in clothes. And
it was odd to see those feet covered up in boots. I caught her eye, and when I
did a look of true surprise came over her. She blushed and smiled nervously,
and then quickly buried her face into her periodical. (I hoped that she didn’t
think I was following her.)
For the rest of the ride home, a completely
adolescent spirit possessed me. I tried to hide it by reading a book of my
own. But the grin that accompanied the thought, "I’ve seen you
naked," stayed with me until my stop.
Broadway Jim Sosnicky
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