by Gwenneth Barnes
I didn't think too much about it at the time. Just that he looked a little weird. I mean, most artists look sort of cool in some way. Interesting clothes, long hair, soulful eyes, things like that. I was used to that. Most of them were pretty okay to talk to, too. The ones who know what they're doing, I mean. You can tell the amateurs, the beginners. They aren't used to having a normal conversation with a naked person. They never know where to look, if you catch my meaning. Then after a while they get used to chatting while they work, and they stop worrying about what to look at and just do their thing.
This guy, though. Pudgy, with dirty, greasy hair that had little flakes of dandruff stuck in it. He was wearing blue work pants and a shirt like a guy in a gas station would wear, with the name "Eric" in script letters on a patch sewn over one pocket. And an old crab claw on a leather thong around his neck. I mean, wearing your dinner leftovers as jewelry is a bit strange. Like, how would it be if I showed up for work wearing old corncobs hanging from my ears, or porkchop bones for a necklace? Gross, right? So I was a little spooked, but I went into his studio anyway. I mean, I wasn't stepping into the unknown or anything.
I always think you can tell a lot more about an artist by the way he keeps his studio than by looking at him or his work, though. Some of them are strictly business, with everything neat and organized. Sometimes that shows up in their work, too, but not always. Like, some of the messiest looking paintings are made in studios so clean you could do surgery in them. Some studios are real junkyards, but the junk is sort of carefully arranged, if you know what I mean. Stuff they've collected, old furniture, neat looking bits of junk. It's like the studio is a piece of art, too.
I remember one artist who used to take me on scavenging trips, down along the river, to look for interesting stuff people had dumped. He brought a camera along, so it was still work, and he'd get me in all kinds of great pictures, hunting along the riverbank for things. We found an old coal furnace once, and a dead dog with a sack tied over its head. Luckily he didn't bring the dog back to his studio, but we used to find a lot of pretty neat things. But anyway, back to this guy.
He had a lot of his drawings on the walls, and hundreds of small polaroid pictures, and while they were a little unusual, they weren't the weirdest I'd seen. The drawings weren't abstract, exactly. They were recognizably people, but distorted in a way I couldn't quite put my finger on. It was as though the people in the pictures didn't want to be there. I mean, I've been modelling and hanging around artists and all that long enough to appreciate what's going on in a picture. I tried not to make it too obvious I was looking at the stuff on the walls, because I don't figure it's really any of my business what the guy's into. I pose, I get paid, and all that, but it's not like any of that stuff belongs to me when it's done.
Anyway, Eric, I guess that's what his name was, I don't remember him saying any different, but anyway, he was sort of middle of the road as far as studios go. Not too tidy, not too messy. Just sort of old and cluttered. The studio was on the seventh floor of the old Grain Exchange building. It looked like it had been a pretty luxurious place at one time, with really beautiful Art Nouveau front doors with bevelled glass and everything, but the lobby was redone in that cheap fake wood panelling, the kind that looks like a magazine picture of a piece of wood. Really cheesy. The studios had probably been nice offices once, but the place had really gone downhill. I imagined the offices being like something out of an old movie sometime in their past. It looked as if the landlord hadn't bothered to fix anything in years.
Usually what I do when I first begin modelling for someone new is just keep quiet for awhile, see if they're the type to chat or if they'd rather just work. Some of them are pretty fussy -- they've got to have everything just so, so I don't take any chances. So I just say something like "Hi, I'm Dana. Do you have someplace where I can get changed?" Even nude models have some modesty, you know. It may sound a bit silly, but while it doesn't bother me to have someone see me naked, I don't like people watching me undress.
So I introduced myself, and asked where I could change. Eric pointed to a door at the end of the big room, so I headed that way with my khaki canvas army bag. I sort of expected a bathroom behind the door, but it was another big room, just like the one I'd left. The place was full of cardboard boxes and big pieces of furniture covered with dusty old canvas tarps. The room smelled like an old tent.
I looked around to see if there was a bathroom or something, but there wasn't. I pushed the door shut and leaned my bum against it to keep it closed while I got out of my clothes and pulled on a dressing gown. I folded up all my stuff, put the panties in my bluejeans pocket, and the socks inside the sneakers. I remembered to take off my watch and glasses, too, and put them in the pocket of my bathrobe. One time I forgot, when I was modeling for a class of first year drawing students at the art college, and I was really embarrassed when the instructor laughed at me. I can't see a damn thing without my glasses, though, so I have to risk tripping over everything if I leave them off. If the studio's messy, I leave them on, then slip them into the pocket of my robe when I got ready to pose. Luckily nobody came in or saw me while I was changing.
Eric had some of his drawings and photos on the walls, like I said before, and some odds and ends of stuff lying around, but it looked more like the back room of a Salvation Army store than an artist's studio. I was surprised, because the last thing you'd expect an artist's studio to be is boring. You'll see some of the damnedest things in studios, I can tell you. I'd been in that building lots of times before, doing modelling for other artists and for one guy who taught life drawing classes to housewives and seniors. I guess the rent was cheap, and the landlord didn't care much what happened in there.
For instance, a lot of guys live right in their studios, even though they're not really supposed to. I was in one place where it was pretty obvious -- over in one corner of the room there was a mattress on the floor, and an electric frying pan and a kettle beside it. I wondered how that guy washed his dishes, or himself for that matter, because there was no bathroom in the place, except for a toilet down the hall that was pretty obviously out of order. He'd have had to go down two floors to get water, I figured, but I was too chicken to ask about it that time. It didn't look as if this guy Eric was doing that, though. At least I didn't see any evidence of it.
I know I sure couldn't live like that. I mean, modelling for artists is no way to get rich, but I do my best to get by and while my place isn't exactly a palace, it's clean and private. I think it would be awful to live right in your studio. It's like never being able to go home from work. I'd hate that, I think. I guess some of them like to be able to get up and work on something as soon as they have the inspiration, but I think a lot of them are just cheap and don't care what kind of squalid place they live in.
I went back through the door to see where he wanted me to pose. He had a drafting table set up in one corner of the room, and a lot of old tables and benches piled up everywhere else. "Up on that table," he said, and pointed to one of them, an old enamelled metal office table with a sort of rubberized linoleum top that was supposed to look like marble or something. On top of that table was another, smaller one. It was a little unusual, but what the hell, I thought.
I've done some unusual things while modelling, but I don't think I'd ever been told to get up on a table. Plus there wasn't any room because of that other table piled on top of it. I looked around to see if there was a cushion or something but all he said was "just hurry up, okay?" so up I got. I took off my bathrobe and spread it out on the table. "No, up higher," he said. Every time he moved, that crab claw necklace would swing back and forth.
I got up on the higher table, which luckily wasn't as rickety as it looked . I must have been six feet off the ground. I wasn't crazy about getting my robe all dusty from the table, but better it than me. It's one I got at a church rummage sale, what they call chenille. I looked that up in the dictionary once and found out chenille is French for caterpillar.
Then he showed me a sketch of how he wanted me to pose. "It's for a record album cover," he said. "I need some more detail." The picture was pretty rough, but I could tell generally that it was a voluptuous naked woman astride a winged dragon. She was holding a torch in one hand. She was definitely better built than I am, not to say I'm flat or anything, but I figured she'd be pretty uncomfortable if that dragon gave her a rough ride because she wasn't wearing any kind of support. Just the sort of thing to give some teenage boy's parents something to complain about. It was just a rough sketch so far, though, nothing distorted or weird about it like the ones on the walls.
I could tell after looking at the picture why he wanted me up so high, so as to get the same point of view as his sketch -- I guess the dragon was supposed to be really tall, or perhaps flying overhead. "Just kneel up there as if you were astride a horse or something," Eric said, so I did. He handed up a big thick wooden dowel for the torch. I held it up high, then got the giggles. Eric looked up from his drafting table and glared at me, so I shut up. One of the things I noticed about him was he used his left hand. A lot of artists do that. I guess it has something to do with being creative, but it must be tough on them to be different.
He hauled out a Polaroid camera and took a couple of pictures from different angles for reference, I guess, did a few preliminary sketches, and got me to move a couple of times until I was positioned right. It wasn't exactly comfortable, but it wasn't so bad I couldn't stay put and not move.
Then he got to work and hardly looked up except once in a while when he said "Okay, take a bit of a rest." It was pretty boring, because he didn't even have a radio on and like I said before he was strictly business and didn't make any kind of conversation except to tell me "turn your head this way" or "lift your arm a little higher." The only other thing that happened was when he moved a bit and the crab claw would clatter against the drafting table. I could hear the thing rattling but I couldn't quite see it. There wasn't much to do but daydream.
I was pretty curious about how his painting was coming along, but I know how sensitive artists are about having someone looking at their work before it's finished, so I didn't say anything. I figured if it was time for me to look at it, he'd call me over. So I didn't get to see anything. That was okay. Once during a drawing class the students all went off for a coffee break, so while I was walking around stretching my muscles after standing in one position for over an hour, I took a peek at some of the drawings. One guy who'd seemed pretty nice and decent had drawn me wearing black stockings and lingerie with all kinds of straps. Really perverted. It was a pretty good likeness, too. You could tell it was me in the picture. That cured me of wanting to see people's drawings. God, I was embarrassed.
Another thing that's embarrassing is when someone figures that because I model for artists and photographers that means I'm some kind of hooker. I don't work for any of those agencies that advertise in the business personals, and never would. They're just a front. I get all my jobs by word of mouth, and I keep my name in at the art college and that, so I know anything I get will be on the up and up. I've quit telling people what I do for a living, 'cause I'm tired of dirty old men getting really friendly thinking I might give them a freebie. I've quit going out with the artists socially, too. I made the mistake of having a little affair with one guy, who bragged about it to everybody he knew. So it's strictly look but don't touch. And they know it.
This went on pretty well the whole afternoon, until the sun started going down around four thirty and we lost the light. The windows in Eric's studio were nice and big, and they faced north, so the place had perfect light during the daytime. If you can get a studio that faces north, you've got it made. The light is nice and even all day.
Luckily he kept the studio decently warm. It's not something most people think about, wearing clothes most of the time. A room might be comfortable if you're wearing jeans and a couple of shirts. But try sitting in that same room without moving for a couple of hours at a time with nothing on. So it was nice of Eric to keep the room warm. Especially since it was winter. He even had a couple of electric heaters plugged in to supplement what came out of the radiators.
When the sun was gone I figured he'd knock it off for the day. The lighting inside the studio wasn't much, a few floor lamps that looked like they'd come from an ugly lamp competition somewhere, and it sure wasn't enough to do any serious artwork. There's a kind of cold feeling about twilight that stays until it gets really dark outside. Then if you're inside with the lights on it feels cosy again.
He finally started putting his stuff away and I put my bathrobe on, and my glasses, and got down. I was pretty stiff from being in that uncomfortable position all afternoon, I can tell you.
"Well, I guess that's it for today," I said and started off to the door to where I had changed.
"Not just yet," he said. "I'm not done."
"Well, there's not enough light to work, is there?" I said. Some of these artists just don't have any sense of time.
I sat on the edge of the table in my robe, dangling my legs back and forth until I remembered waving your feet around meant you were feeling bored or hostile. I mean, watch a bunch of people some time who are listening to someone talk. If they don't like what the guy's saying, the feet go like crazy. It's so obvious. So I quit waving my feet.
I was worried about sounding bitchy, too. When they're drawing you, you're just a thing to them. They don't want you to have a personality, really. I was getting hungry, too, and my stomach chose just that moment to let out a grumble. I also had to pee, but I figured I could wait.
He had the camera again. He set it on the table beside me, then started pulling a tarp off an old wooden wardrobe. The tarp snagged on his crab claw for a second, and I had this secret hope the claw would come off and smash on the floor.
He must have been pretty out of shape, because by the time he'd undone the tarp, folded it up and put it away, his face was all red and puffy and his shirt was wet under the arms. He smelled like a combination of boiled ham and burnt rubber. He huffed and puffed, and I had to stop my feet from waving again. I let my imagination go wild wondering what he had in that wardrobe, and why he was getting it out at this moment. He opened it up, and there was nothing inside, just a few wire coat hangers in a bunch at one end of the rod. And some dust balls in the bottom.
"Get in," he said. I sat down on the bottom of the wardrobe. Eric had the camera in his hand. "And take off that robe again." I took it off. The crab claw was dangling in my face, so I moved my head back a little. I had to hold my breath, too, because of the way he smelled. "Now stand up in there," he said. I couldn't figure out how, because I was taller than the space inside the wardrobe. I ended up sort of hunched up in the corner, with my head twisted to the side. He took a few pictures of me like that, then said "Go get your clothes. Don't put them on."
I went back to the other room where my clothes were, but on the way I must have stepped on a bit of glass or something. I noticed the blood on the floor when I came back. Eric had noticed it too. I sat back down in the wardrobe and put my foot up on the other knee and had a look at the bottom of it. It was too dark to see where the cut was, or how bad it was bleeding. He just wandered around taking pictures of the blood on the floor with his polaroid, so every time my eyes had adjusted to the dark enough that I could check out my cut foot, off would go the flash.
"Do you have a bandaid or something?" I said. By that time the blood had run down onto my other leg and I really wanted to clean it up.
"No," Eric said. "We're almost done here," he said.
"Well, how about a clean towel or something," I said. "I'm really bleeding here."
"Yes, I know," he said. "Just do a couple more poses for me and you can go."
It's a good thing I'm not really that squeamish about blood or I'd have been really panicking. It was starting to sting, though. "Look, it's going to get infected if I don't clean it up," I said. "That's not the cleanest floor, you know."
"Put your sweater on," he said. "I just want to get another couple pictures. And stand in the wardrobe. Same way as you were before."
I figured it would take less time to do it and get it over with than to argue with the guy. Then I wondered if he was trying to get a few cheap thrills. "Look. I just work for artists, okay? I don't do the kind of modelling that's advertised in the personals," I said.
"How do you mean?" Eric said. He looked as if he hadn't the slightest idea what I was talking about.
I thought about standing there with a sweater on and nothing else, crammed into that stupid wardrobe while he took pictures of me half naked and bleeding from a bad cut on my foot. It was starting to ache, a kind of steady throbbing, and I just knew it was already infected and starting to fester.
"Do you get a kick out of this or something?" I said. Then I was sorry I'd said that because if he was mad at me I might have trouble getting paid. That had happened before, and I just didn't have the nerve to chase after the money, even though once I had to put off getting my teeth done because of it. I started putting on my clothes right in front of him, I just didn't care anymore. There was a lump in my throat and I was afraid to say anything more.
He actually turned away from me while I was getting dressed. I finished putting my clothes on, except the socks, and sat for a moment, trying to breathe evenly again. The bleeding seemed to have stopped, at least as far as I could tell in the dim light, so I put my socks and shoes on. "I'll put my bill in the mail," I said while I folded up my bathrobe and put my coat on. "It's four hours, okay?"
Eric didn't say anything, just nodded his head. I left without closing the door behind me, and walked down the stairs to the ground floor. I walked down the street to Woolworth's, which luckily was still open, and got a box of gauze dressings and some tape, and a tube of antibiotic ointment. I fixed up my foot in the ladies washroom and then caught a bus home.
When I went to get my keys out of my coat pocket outside my apartment I felt something else in there. I thought for a second it was that crab claw, and my heart just went crazy. I took a few deep breaths and pulled it out, but it turned out to be nothing but a flat pebble I'd picked up on one of my scavenging trips down to the riverbank. I'd forgotten all about it.