Stripes

When I was young and stupid, I posed nude. It was for ART you see. I posed for life drawing classes at the C*****n School of Art. I loved the environment; the smell of paint and turpentine and charcoal, all the students with paint on their hands, the high windows that let in perfect light. The school was in a beautiful old building in Washington, D.C. on the Ellipse. I felt so fulfilled walking into work there, into the creative world of a select few, so far from my small dairy-farming town.

I thought posing nude would boost my self-confidence about my body. That seems like a laughable notion to me now; but I wanted to be fearless and strong and break down barriers. I didn’t then, and do not now, think my body is good. I’m proud I can still run and do yoga, and that I produced two children but I’ve never liked what I saw in the mirror. I was a chubby child who developed anorexia at 12, and I didn’t get my period until I was seventeen as a result. I was shy and self-conscious and awkward. But somehow I was able to remove my clothing behind a screen and sit or lay on my side for a solid hour in front of a room of strangers.

When you are posing nude for art class, it is all about staying still. It was a mind game for me, like the meditative state I discovered years later in yoga. I took some pride in it. After a class, I looked at all the interpretations of my body, and realized it was just a vehicle for the students. I had to put up with stuff like the preppy girl who said she didn’t recognize me without clothes, such a cliché. Or kids in the class that looked through me. Or my friend asking me what I would do if I got my period.

I remember a professor being concerned about me when I felt faint; I thought it was kind then but wonder if it was patriarchal now. The school liked different body types, I remember an obese man with a beard worked there too, shades of Lucian Freud, and once I saw a pregnant woman. There was even a guild one could join, which I found delightfully medieval.

An instructor introduced me to an Asian woman wanted to paint a pretty, impressionistic painting of me, with a floppy hat and a flowered dress next to a vase of gladioli. Though we could barely speak to each other due to a language barrier, I was flattered and excited by this. I thought the painting was beautiful. But I also thought beauty like that might not have been “deep” enough. I wanted art to be passionate, dark and dramatic, to reveal the secrets of society, to comment on our times, not just be pretty. I thought pretty might be trite.

Another teacher, a man, recommended I pose for **** *****, hereafter referred to as the Famous Artist, or FA. He gave me the number, I called him, and FA had me come to his home. Yes, reader, it was just the two of us there. I know, I know, see young and stupid above.

He had a lovely Northwest Washington home; his wife was out. Of course she was out. He took Polaroids. I stood in the shower, half hidden by the shower curtain, while he snapped away. I crouched in his wife’s closet, filled with proper Republican clothes, pastel suits and pumps and handbags, barely visible in the shots, surely. I sat in the sunny kitchen next to the first espresso machine I had ever seen. I didn’t have to do anything really, just turn this way and that, letting the light catch my hair, turn away from him, stand in profile, crouch.

He told me I wasn’t beautiful, I was only attractive, interesting. I thought it was a compliment, and I have carried that line with me for the rest of my life. It didn’t even occur to me to question it. He always paid me in cash. I never looked at the Polaroids, or even asked to see them. I was 20.

I waiting briefly in the living room for him to get the cash, and the Famous Artist had a fur teacup. (Meret Oppenheim, surrealist, 1930’s) I nearly swooned. I loved surrealist art. Dali! Magritte! Duchamp! Another day FA was about to host an engagement party for Bob Woodward, who was the toast of Washington at the time thanks to Watergate, and the living room was arranged for the party. This impressed me as well, the array of appetizers, the champagne, the track lighting on the art, and the glossy art magazines in a fan. I still subscribe to Art News.

FA showed me his studio. I was deeply shocked, even horrified, when I found that he didn’t do the paintings himself. He had a young helper who painted them on a rig that was lowered, so the stripes were uniform. Did I mention the Famous Artist had made stripe paintings? He made stripes a statement.

I suppose it was very naïve of me to think he painted them himself. Maybe he had at one time. FA must have sketched out what he wanted and selected color, width, etc. The helper seemed uncomfortable to me but maybe I was just projecting. He may just have been busy.

I loved art, though I had never been to an art museum until I moved to D.C., and then I haunted them. I will always have a fondness for the Hirschhorn, its collection, its architecture, and its outdoor Rodin sculpture garden. I bought postcards and posters for my dorm room, had dramatically overpriced coffee at the café, bought tote bags with the logo, which I always made sure was turned out so I could claim a cool cachet.

So I was impressed with art, and I was impressed with FA. He was tall, shaved his head before everyone did. He always wore black turtlenecks and jeans perhaps he started that trend. He was a haughty superior man; he often raised in chin in photographs, and never smiled.

One session included a young woman from Borneo. Before she arrived, the FA remarked how strange it would be to be from Borneo, mentioning the headhunters. I don’t remember what I said in reply; but now the remark seems distinctly colonialist.

I was only 5’5” but I towered over her. She was tiny and dark with a fascinating face structure, sharp cheekbones, and pretty eyes darkened with liner. I imagine there was a lot of contrast between us in photos, as I was blond and freckled and American.

He put us in the shower, and he started to tickle her aggressively, and pinch her nipples. She laughed and pushed his hands away. Then he would do it again. I was shocked at this, but I said nothing. He didn’t reach for me, and for that I am quite thankful. I’ve rarely felt that uncomfortable since. I don’t think he got the photos he had hoped for from me that day.

We left together and walked to the bus stop, but she didn’t speak much English, so I couldn’t express how creeped out I was. It was supposed to be for ART! I felt that I had been pimped out, which angered me. Nothing really happened though, nothing that wasn’t consensual, and I was over eighteen. I suppose I was uptight, that was the word of the day. And the fact that he didn’t actually paint the paintings may have distressed me more, now I saw him as a creep and a fraud. I didn’t know about powerful men.

When FA called me the next time, I told him I would never model for him again. In a rush of words I told him that my parents wouldn’t like what we were doing. I was so young and stupid. I can still hear his arrogant voice saying “Is it that sordid?” before I ended the call.

And when I was 30 then I saw his obituary, with a photo of the Famous Artist, with the proudly tilted chin and cold eye, above the ubiquitous black turtleneck. I smiled a bitter smile. He’d taught me a lot, but like many teachers, it took me a while to learn.