I am thirty-four weeks pregnant, and this week was my last week at work (as a life model) until well after I have this baby. It is bitter-sweet for me because I LOVE this job.
I am thirty-three years old, and I have been doing this work part-time since I was eighteen. I'm mostly not joking when I call it my 'career'. It has been a touchstone for me, in more ways than one, and I owe so much of my satisfaction and personal growth in life to the seminal hours I've spent standing naked in a room, surrounded by the most amazing breed of people; teachers, and their students of art.
I have been a life-long art enthusiast. Growing up, my father was an architect and an amature photographer, and my mother was a ballet dancer and a plant pathologist. I think largely because of this I have always loved playing with structure, and movement, and theater in space.
I was a shy and dreamy eighteen year old, and when I told my Dad I wanted to try Life-modeling, he was skeptical that I could handle it. But I blithely assured him that after years of modeling for him (Clothed, obviously) as a kid, I knew what I was doing.
It was in fact difficult at first, and still can be, even after sixteen years, to take off my clothes and stand in front of a group of strangers, naked. But, as on that first day, the embarrassment quickly wore off and I found myself completely absorbed in the making of a kind of live-dancing-statue-theater. It perfectly blended all of my 'artistic birthrights', in a way completely my own. It was at once architecture, dance, visual-composition, story-telling, and so much more. And the students and the teachers responded, and worked with me. Wherever I've gone it has been the same. A constant, somewhat mysterious, and truly inspiring partnership between artist and model.
Perhaps it sounds like I'm glorifying a rather in-glorious job. But that's what it is for me, and that's why I've been coming back to it again and again, year after year. Its the kind of job that ages well with a person. It doesn't ask that you be gorgeous, or have a perfect body. It only asks that you be in your body, and responsive to the moment, and aware of the story that the movement of your body is telling.
It has ended up becoming my community as well, as any good job will. I have met many smart, dear soul-mates in this work. I am eternally grateful for it, and will miss it dearly during this baby-hiatus. I look forward to returning to it again.
What kind of work have you found to be the most satisfying?
