Despite recent safety concerns, the art department will continue to offer nude posing for its painting and drawing courses.
“When people find out about nude modeling on campus, they come for voyeuristic reasons rather than academic reasons,” said Tiffany O’Kane, the office assistant who hires the department’s models.
Most of the concern comes from instances on other campuses, O’Kane said, but she would not specify about the instances or which campuses have dealt with them.
“We’ve had one or two instances recently and we’re trying to mitigate that,” she said.
Alison Denyer, an art professor, said there is a correlation between increased publicity of the posing program and problems with voyeurs. Denyer stressed that the first priority of the department is the safety of the models, students and staff. O’Kane said the majority of the classes are for undraped poses.
“We have a couple of classes that are draped, though that’s the exception, not the rule,” she said.
The majority of the department’s 18 models are students, O’Kane said. The department hires models on and off campus. However, because of the economic downturn and, subsequently, tight budgets, the department is not hiring models.
O’Kane said the department gives all of its models a choice to pose draped or undraped. The average posing assignment typically runs for two three-hour class periods. Models receive $15 per hour of posing. The pay rate is the same for draped and undraped modeling.
“We’ve had a few people who are strictly draped,” O’Kane said. “We’ll take them anyway and we’ll give them those classes first. I haven’t had anyone walk away because of that, but I’m sure it’s happened in the past.”
Mark Edwards, a local business owner, began modeling for the art department at the U last year, though he has been modeling for about 25 years.
Undraped modeling does not bother Edwards.
“In a fine arts setting, generally there’s nothing immodest or pornographic,” he said. “It’s nothing you’d expect teenagers to giggle about in the locker room.”
In college, Edwards pursued a degree in fine arts, but did not have the technical skill to go further.
“I can’t draw and I can’t paint,” he said. “I got into modeling in college. Modeling is my contribution to the fine arts.”
Edwards said that posing in the art department has made him wish he was a student again.
“The staff knows exactly what they are looking for with all the models and with me especially,” he said. “When I was in college, the staff was not as professional. The students are very fortunate to have these instructors.”
i.bravo@chronicle.utah.edu
The Daily Utah Chronicle > News
Nude posing for art class continues despite concerns
Published: Thursday, April 16, 2009
Updated: Thursday, April 16, 2009
do you go to the theatre to hear a group of people read scripts on stage?
i would like to draw your attention to an article that appeared in the eugene weekly of 25 may 2006 (visual arts)
you'll find a number of artworks, including one called "ode to edo"
be sure to read the accompanying critique of this life-size painting.
that's me, paul, my flesh, my bone (check the right arm) and my soul....that is what i do for a living, paul,: pose naked
yes indeed.......actually, i am not really a model (that word implies that one is inanimate, like a bowl of fruit)....i am just a guy who poses - naked and otherwise - for artists and art students.
naked implies vulnerability and surrender; there is an edginess to it (even when people are gazing at a painting or drawing of me naked and i am not even in their presence at that moment, i am vulnerable)
in my view - and that is just my view (kenneth clark, the art historian, holds exactly the opposite view) - one is nude only when one is by him, or herself and has no clothes on.now, just to clear something up: i am by no means lewd when i pose; but i do have certain poses in my repertoire that are, or least, that i consider, erotic; after all, these are "life" drawing classes and noone can deny that sex is part of life.
for example, i do a reclining pose that is clearly "post-coital" (minus the cigarette - i quit smoking many years ago)
on the other hand, i also do a reclining pose that that reflects on dying and suffering.
and there is one pose in which i kneel on one knee and stretch both arms to the heavens; hands held out and open
if you have a point, make it.......preferably after you have read my blog in its entirety (that , by now, would take several days)......in particular, the passages about that brilliant austrian artist egon schiele.
i am an artist; i grew up and was educated in europe.........if it's art, i know of what i speak.
and, yes, of course models, art instructors and the polite art collectors in this world will deny it'sabout sex......i don't expect anything else.
me?..............well, my friend, i am an exhibitionist and i enjoy the thrill of the vulnerability and nakedness .
and before you say it, let be get ahead of you and tell you there is no such thing as a nude model; when i have no clothes on in the art studio, i am naked, not nude....................i am a performer and if you really look up close, you will see that i expose not only my flesh, but my soul as well.
ah, jake, be brave, check out the blog including the drawings art students have done of me.
drawing the naked human figure is an anomaly, a throwback to the times before cameras were invented.
i say, drawing, painting, sculpting, photographing the naked human has little to do with art.....it's really all abou sex....really!
for my experiences and observations as a man posing naked for artists and art students, check out my blog:
www.themodelundraped.blogspot.com