The Itch

I was counting it up, and I've only modeled twice since April 21st.  It's the end of July, and the prospects for bookings over the next month don't look good.  When I don't get to model for a long time, I get anxious, and I go looking for places and groups to model for.  I found a place that does sketch nights kind of like the Kettle used to do, and I've offered to volunteer as a model for them.  We'll see what they say.

I don't know why I get so anxious.  Being a nude model is such a part of how I identify myself, so when I don't get to do it much, I feel unfulfilled somehow.  And I even hesitate to call myself a nude model any more.  I like to think of myself as a pure model, as in purely human without all the extra accouterments that society compels us to put on.

Maybe my IT job is too consuming, or maybe our recent move from one house to another has been taking up too much time and resources, or maybe it's just a combination of everything that is leaving me feeling frustrated.  I like to think of myself as atypical.  I don't want to be the typical IT guy, the typical Christian, the typical political activist, or the typical model.  Yet, when I confine myself to any of those titles to the exclusion of the others, typical is how I feel.

I'm sure these feelings will pass once the fall semester gets started, as long as I'm able to book modeling gigs.

Ground Zero

The job in Wyoming that I interviewed for didn't pan out.  I suspect that I was too expensive for them as I had to list the salaries from my last three jobs on the application.  It's just as well since my wife wasn't too keen on moving right now.  So I get to keep modeling in the Dallas/Fort Worth area whenever my schedule allows me to take bookings.

I took a vacation day yesterday and spent it in the Texas State Capitol building in Austin as it has become ground zero in the abortion debate.  Considering that the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision struck down a Texas statute, perhaps the Texas Capitol has always been a ground zero in that debate.  I was one of several hundred who testified at a hearing of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee.  I would probably be called a hardcore pro-lifer.  I believe that government exists to protect the right to life, liberty, and property of every person.  I believe that the definition of person must include every living organism that can be biologically classified as homo sapien.

That being said, I was very critical of the supposedly pro-life bill in question when I testified to the committee.  Each witness only had a maximum of two minutes to speak, so I had to give an extremely condensed version of the written testimony that I submitted.

All in all, it was an amazing day.  I feel very fortunate to live in a country where I can participate in the political process.

If anyone is interested, a copy of the written testimony I submitted to the Texas Senate Health and Human Services Committee can be found on my other blog here:  http://texaspersonhood.blogspot.com/2013/07/ground-zero.html

To Lie or Not to Lie

I had a preliminary phone interview for a job in Wyoming last week.  The job is technology manager for a county public library system.  Since I have a Masters degree in library science, and I've worked in corporate IT for most of the past 15 years, the job would be perfect for me.

The interview consisted of ten or so rather standard questions.  One of the questions was, "What was your favorite job and why?"  I paused for a moment.  The people interviewing me had my resume, edited for just that position.  Nowhere on it did it say anything about my being a nude model.  But my favorite job?  The job I have loved and enjoyed the most out of all the various positions I've held?  It's not even close.  Modeling, and especially nude modeling for figure drawing, has been and will probably always be my favorite job.

I like to be honest with whomever I'm talking to, but I wasn't sure how the disclosure of my nude modeling would go over with the panelists conducting the interview.  I remember a telephone conversation I had in 2001 with an associate producer from the ABC gameshow "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire."  I had already won a spot on the show by playing their phone game, and this AP was just conducting an interview for my biography card.  If I made it to the "hot seat" on the show, that card would go to host Regis Philbin so that he could pick something interesting to talk about on the air.  The AP asked me about my past jobs and which was my favorite, and I immediately told her about being a model for college drawing classes.  I remember her asking how I got into it, and I told her something like, "A cute girl in my college dorm told me she drew naked models in her art class, and I just immediately wanted to be one of those naked models."  The AP stammered for a little bit, and finally admitted that this was the first time she had ever been shocked doing a contestant interview.  She asked if I really wanted that included on my card, which might then be talked about in front of a national television audience of millions.  I thought for just a moment, and said yes.  Modeling was just a part of who I was, and I didn't want to hide it in what might become my fifteen minutes of fame.  And of course, it had already been determined that I was going on the show.  I wasn't risking anything in that phone conversation.

But this job interview was different.  I wanted to continue to be considered for the Wyoming job, even though it might mean a major upheaval in my life, and I was sure that dropping the bombshell that I am a part time nude model would kill that.  This job, if I got it, might even mean the end of my modeling career.  But I'm ready for a change of scenery.  And I'm sure that, eventually, I would find a class or a group of artists to model for.  So I lied.  I picked one of the jobs on the resume that they had in front of them.  I think my answer sounded good.  I hope so, at least.  But we'll see what happens...

Hectic Schedule

I haven't posted much lately.  Of course, I haven't modeled much lately either.  The last gig I had was the Sunday drawing lab at the Dallas Creative Arts Center on April 21st.  My new job provides no paid time off during the first 90 days of employment.  I started on March 13th, so I will hit that 90 day mark this week.  After that, I will have one floating holiday and five vacation days to take until the end of the year.  I've already scheduled three days for a baseball road trip with my family the first week of August.  We plan on hitting the Louisville Slugger factory and museum, going to a Reds game in Cincinnati and a couple of Pirates-Rockies games in Pittsburgh.  I'm really looking forward to it since I need time away from everything here in Texas.

My older son's baseball schedule has kept us busy most weekends, and he usually has at least one week night practice a week.  My boss at my new job wants the IT staff to work at least 43 hours per week this summer.  My commute home from work can best be described as construction hell.  It seems as if every freeway in Tarrant County, Texas is under construction.  A new project just started on I-35W, just north of Loop 820.  Of course, none of the other projects (Loop 820, I-20 near the Hulen Mall, 183 in the mid-cities, 121 in Grapevine, I-30 near downtown Fort Worth, etc.) are even close to being finished.  My route home takes me through two of those construction projects.  If there happens to be a wreck  or a breakdown somewhere on the way, traffic is tied up for miles.  With all the concrete construction barriers, there is nowhere for cars to pull off.

I sit in traffic every day and think about leaving the Dallas-Fort Worth area.  I have applied for two jobs in Wyoming and one in Colorado, and I'll probably apply for a few more.  Such a move might put the brakes on any modeling I might do, simply because of the lack of opportunity in a state like Wyoming.  But the slower pace, the much lower population density, the cooler summers, the beautiful mountain scenery, the proximity to ski resorts, all appeals to me.  I lived in Colorado for over a year in 1994-95, and I loved it.  It has been a dream of mine to get back to the Rocky Mountain region, and Wyoming sounds wonderful (the lack of a state income tax there helps).

I don't know if any of these opportunities will come to fruition, but I keep dreaming...

The 42 Hour Pose

I've been planning this post for awhile, but my new full-time IT job has kept me too busy to sit down and write it.  The job is OK, and it is nice to be getting a full paycheck.  But I miss all the modeling gigs I got to do during the weekday hours after I was laid off.

One of those modeling gigs was a long pose at the Texas Academy of Figurative Art (TAFA).  And by long pose, I mean one lasting several weeks.  It was a standing pose with one foot up on a block, my back to most of the students.  My left arm was away from my torso holding a pole while my right arm hung at my side.  The pose was challenging, but I had enough breaks during the sessions to make it bearable.  The real challenge was getting back into the same position after each break.  The feet were easy since outlines were marked on the platform and on the block.  The turn of my head was a little tricky.  I marked the spot where my gaze was fixed with a little piece of blue tape, and I always moved my eyes back and forth whenever I resumed the pose, to make sure the edges of my peripheral vision were the same as before.  The left arm, the one holding the pole, was always the most difficult to get right.  A mark had been made on the floor for the bottom of the pole, but there was no way to mark either the top or the angle of the pole.  It was a best guess, with the students checking my position against their drawings.  At some point during that first session, I made a mark on the wall with blue tape, and started each resumption of the pose by putting the top of the pole on that mark before moving into position.  I tried to memorize that motion of moving the pole away from the wall and into the pose.  That seemed to work for the most part.

The sessions were every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon, from 1:00 to 4:00, and they lasted seven weeks, 42 hours in all.  I held the pose 15 to 20 minutes at a time with 5 to 8 minute breaks in between.  So if my pose to break ratio was three to one, I was in the pose somewhere between 31 and 32 hours.

The work produced by Ron and his students during such a long pose was exquisite (as is most of the work produced at TAFA).  Some students worked on the same drawing the entire seven weeks while others moved about the room and did multiple drawings.  I did get a few shots just after the pose ended on the last day.

While I did get rather tired of that pose (and especially of looking at a spot on the wall, faced away from all of the artists), I do miss getting to model at TAFA so often.  I love the work that they do there, and I hope that, somehow, I get to do another long pose there in the not-too-distant future.

The Fun of Modeling

**I'm going to include a few photos with this post.  The last one will be a full frontal, not-safe-for-work shot, so  if you'd rather not see it, don't scroll all the way down.**

I've had quite a few fun sessions this past week, which just makes my return to full-time IT work that much more difficult.  Last Wednesday (the day Van Cliburn died), I was the model for a project in which each member of the class participated in a single drawing.  They all took turns placing marks on the page, filling in whatever they thought the drawing needed at the time.  And the drawing was done on large paper attached to the wall.  The result was moved out into the hallway gallery, and I got a shot of it below.  It's not the most accurate drawing anatomically or proportionally, but the class had a great time doing it.  And I had fun watching them (until my back started hurting from the pose).

This week at the University of North Texas, the Drawing II classes have been working on a fun project.  The students have to draw from the model doing one of three things:  exaggeration (making one or more body parts larger than normal), dislocation (moving body parts around by changing perspective, etc.), or transfiguration (drawing the figure and incorporating some kind of animal into it).  To help with the transfiguration, several stuffed, toy, or model animals were scattered throughout the room.  Here's the setup of the room I was in earlier today:

The most impressive stuffed animal was, of course, the mountain lion.  Unfortunately, my pose was independent of everything else, so I didn't get to do one that looked like I was interacting with it.  The class did do some warm-up gestures before the long drawings, and I did do one two-minute pose bent over with my arm outstretched toward the raccoon, as if I were offering it food (probably not a good idea if it were a live raccoon).

Here are some shots of some of the drawings at the end of class...

And finally, I couldn't resist getting a picture of myself with the mountain lion.  One of the students graciously took this shot of me on my phone (NSFW):

All Good Things...

With great relief and sadness, I report that I have accepted a new full-time IT position and that I will start my new job on March 13th.  I am relieved that our family income will now be restored to 2012 levels, meaning that we can continue paying the mortgage, car payment, etc.  I am sad because my availability to model will be drastically cut from what it has been these past two months.

Since the semester started in mid-January, I have had a wonderful time modeling fifteen to twenty hours per week at several different schools.  Instead of getting up and going to a job that I felt like I had to go to, I got to go to a job that I loved.  Every modeling gig I had, I went with the attitude that I was privileged to be there and that I was going to give those students or those artists the best session that any model could ever give.  I was having so much fun that I was beginning to look at home-based businesses and work-from-home opportunities just to keep my days open to model while still bringing in enough money to live on.  But alas, nothing I saw started out paying as much as a full time information technology position would, and I need the income now.  In the current economy, I feel fortunate to have gotten a new job after only two months off.

I did push my start date back a couple of weeks to accommodate all the model bookings I had.  Yesterday, I had to cancel my only long-range bookings (four dates in April at Mountain View College), and doing so nearly broke my heart.  I hate having to cancel any model booking.  Counting the two classes I did yesterday (at two different schools), I will have 19 hours of modeling this week.  I also have a Tuesday morning session at the Fort Worth Community Arts Center next week, the day before I start my new job.

I will still model evenings and weekends, but most of the soliciting I've done for the current semester has been for weekday classes.  I don't have much going on in the evenings this spring, so I may not get to model much for a little while after I start my new job.  But I will definitely keep modeling for whatever sessions I can get; I plan on doing it until I get so old and decrepit that I can no longer hold a pose...