Drawing, life

Later, in the break, I am not what I expect.

She, my aunt, supplies the robe. It is white, towelling, lemon bitter soft. I change behind the Japanese screen. I am wider than the Japanese women, but not split three ways. Not yet. I tuck my knickers into the pocket of my jeans. Fold my bra into itself.

The uncovering is awkward. They are careful not to look. Not looking, carefully.

They, five of them, have signed up for life drawing, and I, just me, have signed up for £15. I am twenty-two, recently dumped by a soldier boyfriend.

You told me to go back to her, he said, so I did.

What do you do with a black wooden hat stand with its felt array of goblin hats that you bought for the boyfriend you no longer have?

I stand beside the chaise longue, stretch my toes. My toenails are unadorned. I don’t look at myself or them.

How to disrobe? Untie the belt. Coil, coiling.

Uncoiled.

They are sharpening pencils, flattening paper on easels, pulling up sleeves. They are whispering. There is mention of how cold it is out.

Most of them will be dead now.

They are in caramel and beige and navy and white. Close-knitted fishermen’s sweaters, big jewels, thin necks that crease, pince, fold.

The room smells of turps, lavender, mineral, lead pencil, artists’ paper.

The art of seeing. I am naked.

She is the nude.

The tutor, my aunt, a painter, and someone important at the Edinburgh College of Art, directs me into a pose on the chaise longue.

After fifteen seconds I twitch, I itch, I pull, I stretch. Count down time on my toes, my nose, noes, so many knows.

Fifteen-minute bursts. Bursting to move.

The men don’t draw my face. The women shade my groin. I tour, in the robe at half time, a regal inspection, a glittering eye.

They use charcoal and pencil. Sweep the page. I am belly thigh chin calves. Some of them fill in the strawberry pattern of the chaise longue, the fabric more comfortable than a breast or nipple.

I feel them blunten flatten distemper perspective.

Sex doll, centrefold, still-life.

They catch the clutch of my clavicle.

I have nothing on my skin but shifting air. She is nude and I am naked.

Would you tank that canvas?

Object or subject. Take your pick.

I do not yet have the language of war.

In the break they circle me, close in, offer a custard cream. Take two, someone says.

I tongue the crumbs out of my teeth.

Why did I tell him to go back to her?

He holds his crayon up, measures me with a skewed eye. I am three inches. He calculates perspective. Block by anatomical block. There is gin on his breath. And olive.

Thumbelina.

Crawling shame where there is no shame and no need for any crawling, not at all.

My sighs hue and thigh.

Cindy Sherman in fractured flesh.

Disembodied, disempowered, disingenuous. Is it over yet?

I once drew the head of a dachshund, just the ears nose throat. I was rather pleased with the result.

In the flat next door a baby cries. The baby will cry for ninety minutes. The howls set teeth on edge, tighten wrists, diminish scale.

Five mannequin heads on the top shelf. Two without wigs. All with bats for lashes.

He said I put the idea into his head.

The ear that hasn’t been cleaned, the eyes veer swerve bend.  

The woman at the near end of the five isn’t holding back. Her arms sweeps her mouth opens her hips wide and dancing. I want to smile at this woman.

I could give the goblin hats to the mannequin heads. Two each to the ones without wigs.

I don’t. Of course I don’t smile.

                                                Never smile during the pose only at the end when I’m dressed and have three notes in the brown envelope.

And the tips.

This piece is written from the prompt ‘portrait’. The photograph is a section of a graphite and charcoal drawing ‘Sitting Woman’ by Jude Nixon, Edinburgh (2015).