“What we’re doing is capturing the inner beauty,” Rich DiCarlo told me as the nude model struck a pose somewhere between Rodin’s “Thinker” and Ringo Starr beating a drum.
Wednesday was the first time I’ve sat in an art studio, sketching a nude woman.
I was there because The Valley Arts Council at 119 Caroline St. has been hosting “life model” drawing sessions the fourth Wednesday of every month.
Why the Valley Indy’s editor specifically chose me for the assignment, I don’t know.
The $10 cost of admission offered three hours of art poses under studio light, fresh brewed coffee, cold drinks from the refrigerator, and if you wanted, a free glass of beer or wine.
There was a little humor, mostly about the beer and the wine.
“I didn’t know you could have beer and a nude model at the same time,” joked the model, Bette Blackwell, of Bridgeport.
“Well, it’s OK as long as we don’t charge for it,” answered DiCarlo, president of the Valley Arts Council. “Whatever you do, don’t dance.”
Bette was personable. She warmed up to me quickly. It felt like we were old pals.
She wore a tattoo that said she was copyright 1959, so I figured we were the same age — 51.
She had bright, Celtic tattoos, short-cropped, dark hair — shorter than perhaps I had worn since I was a kid getting zips for the summer at my mother’s direction. She had an open, friendly face, and she wasn’t shy about exposing herself in a way that had nothing to do with her being nude.
She told me of the pain and frustration of being laid off from a job she had held and enjoyed for 16 years, as a public television video editor.
She didn’t have to tell me. I could see it.
I am not a schooled artist, but I am a practiced observer. I could see in her body language, in the subtle way she tucked her head into her shoulder, that she was facing a time of uncertainty and doubt in her life.
I could see the pain — and while other artists nearby were capturing her beauty, or the graceful elegance of her poses, my pencil was capturing instead the anguish she appeared to be feeling.
I wanted to help her somehow, to say some word that would relieve her and make her feel perhaps optimistic.
But hell, I could use a dose of that myself.
I am also between jobs, living low-budget, trying to be optimistic about an uncertain situation.
She noticed I had brought my own paper, but it was loose, not an artist’s sketchbook like the others.
“Yes, it’s resume paper. I have plenty of it,” I told her with a laugh.
A portable radio was set to WEBE 108 FM, playing a mix of easy listening pop hits by the likes of Peter Frampton and John Mayer, and it had a relaxing effect on Bette. She was still as deer in headlights, but I could see in the light reflecting in her clear and bright eyes that in her soul, she was dancing with it.
“Don’t hesitate,” Peter Frampton sang from the radio, in his hit record of 1977. A woman next to me started singing along. “You know my love won’t wait.”
Bette’s eyes momentarily faded, as if perhaps she was adrift in a memory of a time long ago, when love indeed was something that couldn’t wait.
But now waiting is a matter of course. She handed me her business card, showing she is freelancing as a photographer. She is waiting to get lucky and find a job.
I am waiting to find a job. We’re both waiting for lots of things these days — waiting for the economy to improve, waiting for our next job interview, waiting for our next unemployment check, waiting for Election Day so we can vote for people we somehow believe can help get us out of this malaise.
For more information on the monthly live model drawing sessions at the Valley Arts Council, call Rich DiCarlo at 203 – 906-4343. Click here to visit their website.
