Chapter Eight
Eight
Our model this week is a young blond woman named Mel.
She’s a grinning, friendly good time until she strips naked on the model stand and then she’s Death Valley serious.
She’s got soccer player legs that pin her aggressively to the earth, no matter what pose she strikes, and I get lost trying to draw them.
“That’s two muscles, actually, not one,” Daniel says over my shoulder, putting his terra-cotta pencil on my drawing and adding an extra bump where I hadn’t noticed there was one. “It’s hard to tell from this angle, but look at her right leg. See? You can see it there.”
“Ah. Right.”
“And, Roz?”
I look at him.
“We’re drawing Mel today,” he says in smiling, gentle admonishment. “Not just legs.”
“Oh.” I eye my drawing pad. Across which five pairs of legs dance, all in different poses. “Right.”
I lift my pencil to try to give these legs a torso, a head, a—God, help me—face, and I just, sort of, get stuck.
What am I supposed to be looking for again?
Organic, repeatable rhythms? Mel doesn’t have a penis.
So now I’m not sure how to draw her nose.
But that’s my best trick! Wait, what other body parts happen to look like other body parts?
Daniel pushes my pencil forward until it connects with the paper. “Draw, Antonio. Draw.”
I’m not exactly sure what this Antonio business is all about, but I’ve heard him say it to other students, who also are not named Antonio, so I assume it has some meaning that’s lost on me.
The timer dings. Mel gets dressed and drinks a smoothie in the corner while Daniel gives us all an anatomy lecture on what he calls “the autonomous unit of the arm,” which apparently goes all the way across your shoulder blade and down your ribs.
When the lecture ends, Daniel doesn’t immediately call us all back to our easels and I notice that other students are walking in a circle, eyeing everyone else’s drawings.
“Care for a stroll?” Lauro says to me, one elbow cocked out for me to take. “I’ll give you a tour of your classmates.” We start strolling. “Here’s Reggie. He’s a structural engineer, if you can’t tell.”
Reggie, the middle-aged redheaded man who I saw carrying Esther’s grandson to a cab after class last week, has drawn a very different Mel than I have. Reggie’s Mel has every single muscle a human can have. She’s an architectural marvel. His lines are single and dark.
“Stacia makes everybody look like they could fly,” Lauro says, affectionately, as we get to the next easel. And he’s right. Her lines are feathery and delicate. Under Stacia’s hand, Mel has become big-shouldered but skinny-waisted, like a bird about to take flight.
“Esther loves everyone.” Esther’s drawings are cherubic and simple. She hasn’t bothered with muscles or bone structure, really. Esther’s Mel is well fed and happy.
“Cindy’s got attitude.” And, boy, does she. Mel looks like Jack Nicholson.
“Penny finds every model’s best feature immediately,” he says admiringly. Penny’s drawing is anatomical and sure-footed until it gets to Mel’s chin and neck, which are done with the flourish of a treble clef.
“Shan is…Shan.” These are anime-style drawings, they look nothing like Mel, but that doesn’t seem to bother Shan, who is propped in her chair, texting and eating Swedish Fish.
We circumnavigate the room. I’m charmed by every new drawing, and artist, we see.
I think, in the back of my mind, I’d been thinking that every person, besides me, was an artistic genius.
I’d been expecting them all to be drawing on Degas levels.
But no, these are ordinary New Yorkers taking an art class, just like me.
Some with more practice than others. Some with more talent than others.
“Everybody’s drawings…” I say slowly.
Lauro stops circumnavigating and eyes me patiently. He looks genuinely curious. Which, I’m not gonna lie, is a good look for him. Much better than his usual tinge of sexy-and-I-know-it.
“Everybody’s drawings seem…a little bit like them.” I try to formulate the thought. “It’s like…each person…some part of their personality does the drawing, not just their hand.”
Twin matches are lit behind Lauro’s eyes. He gives me a brisk nod. “Undoubtedly.” He opens his mouth to say more but snaps it closed when Em pauses next to us.
“In short,” she says, “I wanted to understand myself.”
“Hm?” I ask.
“It’s something Matisse said. When he was talking about why he drew. He studied the great masters and drew from them, to learn. To find himself. He thought that expressing himself through drawing…that would be the best way to understand himself. As a person.”
“Oh,” I say.
Em pauses for another beat, perhaps waiting for me to contribute to the conversation by quoting Picasso or something. But when I don’t/can’t, she just bobs her head and ducks away.
Lauro is looking after her, but then turns to me.
“I’m very smart!” I insist. “I’ll show you my SAT scores if I have to.”
He’s smiling wolfishly at me. “Everybody is here to learn.”
It doesn’t soothe me and isn’t meant to. I stick my tongue out at him and he takes me by the shoulders and steers me toward another easel.
Lauro’s drawings. “Sexy, right?”
I stop and look. He’s annoying for saying it about his own work, but he’s right. Lauro’s drawings have an effortless appeal. Long, elegant lines that start at the spine, sail perfectly around the hip, curvily twist to a heel. No scritcha-scratch for him.
“Art school?” I ask him.
He pumps his eyebrows. “Among other things.”
I’m about to ask him if he fucked my best friend last weekend but we make it, finally, to Em’s easel.
He doesn’t say anything, and neither do I. Because there are no words. To my surprise, tears prick at my eyes. I’m not usually a cry-at-art type of gal but Em has captured Mel.
Five different Mels stand, sit, and slouch together on the page.
Like they all existed at once, like Em wasn’t trying to draw the mechanics of five different poses, she was trying to draw different sides of Mel, that only she could see, that only Mel could show her.
It’s not a perfect likeness, because it’s not photorealistic, which would have been boring and impersonal.
No, it’s not just Mel on the page, there’s something personal to Em in these drawings as well.
In the groups of muscles that bunch just a little too far, showing Mel’s athletic vibrancy and Em’s celebration of it.
The lines are slightly exaggerated, don’t meet at the cross sections, Mel’s energy bursts forth from the page and so does Em’s.
It’s the two of them at once. Artist and model.
Married in a moment that has already passed, can never be replicated again, couldn’t have been photographed, can only be drawn.
I’m moved beyond words.
“Wow,” I whisper.
“Exactly,” Lauro agrees. Thrilled that I get it.
I scrunch my face down. “I need more practice.”
Raffi comes over for dinner a few nights later.
Vin and I are still committed to the ruse.
We’re not exactly loving, but we’re not outright cold, either.
If he’s noticed that Vin and I have been falling to pieces, he hasn’t said anything.
It occurs to me that maybe it happened so gradually it seems normal.
Normal that Vin didn’t eat dinner with us.
That he’s sitting at the kitchen table on his phone instead of chatting with us on the couch.
“Hey,” I say to Raff, my legs stretched out onto the coffee table and my hands curled around an after-dinner cup of tea. “Where can I find free nudes in this city?”
I feel Vin look up at me.
“Say more about that,” Raff answers.
“I’m super into the figure drawing thing. And I want to practice more than once a week. But classes are expensive. I need free naked people.”
“Everyone needs free naked people.”
“See, that’s the problem. This whole city is horny. Nobody will pose for me unless it comes with a happy ending.”
“Where were you looking for these people?” Raff demands. “Tinder?”
There’s a clatter from across the room and I think Vin may have just bobbled his phone.
“Of course I’m not using dating apps. I just googled free figure drawing, NYC, but everything seemed super sketchy. Like, in someone’s living room. That kind of thing. All the well-meaning naked people are behind a paywall.”
“Can you draw from photos? There have to be figure drawing websites, or YouTube channels or something.”
“I tried that, but I feel like a lot of the magic gets lost when it’s in 2D. There’s no connection with the model. No spark of the here and now.”
Raff cocks his head to one side. “Sounds romantic.”
“Figure drawing is kind of romantic. Not in a…flirtatious way. It’s just really personal. Vulnerable.”
“Right. The model is naked for you. Totally vulnerable.”
“And you’re doing your stupid little drawing of them, which shows all your flaws and your newbie-ness. Also totally vulnerable.”
“Yeah, I can see how drawing from some pics on the internet could flatten that experience a little bit. Well, you can draw me, if you want.”
Vin straightens up, like he might stand.
“I don’t want to see you naked!” I say to Raff. “But thanks. Hey, speaking of naked, what happened with Lauro?”
He rolls his head to look at me. “Nothing. I mean, nothing romantic. He’s a cool guy. I like him.”
“His art is really elegant and pretty.”
“Just like him,” Raff says with a smile.
“Lauro is in your art class?” Vin asks from across the room, inscrutable.
“Yeah, that’s how I met him.”
“Why are you sitting all the way over there?” Raff asks him. “Quit being a grump and come join us.” When Vin still doesn’t move, Raff lifts his arms. “I need someone to cuddle me and make me feel alive.”