Being a (Role) Model

There is always something new to experience at Interlochen.  There is so much to do here, and it's hard to fit  it all in the six short weeks we are here.  This year has been very different from the past five years for me, because I get to work at Interlochen!  I am a member of Stage Services, or Stage Crew.  Basically, I move chairs and stands around all day.  I work in a small venue with two other girls, and we set up for a LOT of choirs.  Usually, our rehearsals only last until 5:00, due to the fact that we have no late-night concerts in our building.  This means that I have a lot of free time at night. Typically, I go home, and Mommy, Glo, and I party down until 10 or 11 pm.  It's a sweet life.

Being an Interlochen employee offers me a lot more opportunities to get involved.  I can volunteer to help work the front gate, I can drive around in a golf cart, and I can be a figure model.  Every year, Interlochen posts flyers around camp, asking employees to be figure models for the Visual Arts Open Studios.  I decided to do it, because I would be paid.  That was my main motivation behind doing it.  I am not a visual artist, but I thought it could also be interesting to watch the campers work.  I am so jealous of people with visual artistic ability, especially since my brother and sister have so much talent in that area, and I have none.  

I offered to work two sessions.  One was a high-school drawing class, and another was an open studio.  I showed up at 8:30 am for the high-school session.  I was a little nervous, mainly because I had no idea what to expect.  I thought that maybe I would be posed a certain way, sit there for an hour, and leave.  Oh no.

When I arrived, I had no idea where I was supposed to go.  No one had given me directions as to what room I should go to, so I wandered around until I found the drawing studio.  I assumed this was my best bet, and thankfully, I was right!  You wouldn't know it though by the teacher's reaction.  I walked into the drawing studio, and at first couldn't even tell who the teacher was.  All of the people in the room looked the same age, and no one looked up when I walked in.  I stood there for a little while until one woman looked up, and asked if I was the model for today.  Here's how our conversation went.

Her: "Are you the model for today?"

Me:  "Yes!  My name is Hannah," (I left off the Jo, because let's be honest, it's easier introducing myself that way to people who are going to forget my name an hour later anyway).

Her:  Can you stay until 9:45?

Me:  "Yes, absolutely.  I can stay as long as you need me to."

Her:  "Okay.  They're running late right now, so we might need you to stay longer."

Me:  "Okay. No problem!"

Her:  "You can sit there until we need you.  And I'm going to need you to take your sweater off, but you can leave your headband in."

At this point, she starts drawing again, and I sit down.  It's super quiet and I feel a little awkward.  Eventually the kids finish drawing and the teacher stands up.  She says something about what they were just doing, and then turns to me and says, "This is our model for today.  What's your name again?"

Now, I know we had just met, but Hannah isn't that hard of a name to remember.  I let it go, because she had just met me.  However, she then proceeded to call me Anna, and ask my name again three more times later during the session. I can't even imagine what would have happened if I had told her my actual name :)

We started out with slow, two-minute poses.  I would hold an interesting pose for two minutes, and the kids were supposed to draw the shape my body created.  Oh, and I was standing on a table while doing this.  As if it weren't awkward enough.  Anyway, we moved on to fast poses, which I would hold for 30 seconds, then switch poses quickly, and they would start again.  I tried really hard to be funny, and ease some of the obvious tension in the room, but man!  These kids were so serious!

The last pose I held was a 30 minute pose. I imagined they would position me in a chair, doing some easy to hold pose. Oh no.  The teacher wanted something interesting and difficult.  I think it was more difficult for me to hold than it was the students to draw.  The teacher wanted me reclining, with limbs crossed, and in a position that everyone could see something interesting from every angle.  This involved me leaning back on my elbows, with my legs to one side underneath me, with my head held off to one side of my body.  I also had a plastic gun on my leg, and a purse nestled in the crook of one elbow. The purse was the head of Ernie from Sesame Street.

It isn't until you're in a  pose similar to mine that you realize how heavy a human head is.  I thought holding my head to one side would be the easiest part of the pose.  Boy, was I wrong.  After about seven minutes, my neck muscles started hurting a LOT!  I was supposed to take a break every ten minutes, but I wasn't sure I could make it that long.  When the teacher called the first break, it took some effort to lift my head back to it's regular position.  By the third break, I could barely keep my head from dropping completely back.  In the end, I gave up trying to hold my head above empty air, and eased the pain a little bit by holding it in line with my body.  30 minutes has never felt long.

I had also signed up for a two-hour open studio the next day, and I have to admit, I was dreading it.  I couldn't imagine doing what I had just done for two hours.  But I had made a commitment and I was getting paid.

I showed up to the open studio, and this time, there were two young guys supervising the session. They were super friendly, and told me that I could pose however I wanted.  With the woman the day before, she had said the same thing, but I knew that she would change how I was posed if she didn't like it.  These guys meant it.  They called in students from the other rooms and asked if anyone wanted to draw me.  Only one girl wanted to do so, because everyone else wanted to work on self-portraits.  There were three intermediate kids working, and a couple high schoolers, but I focused on the intermediates because they looked like they were having a lot of fun.  I started talking to them, and by the end of the session, they really liked me.  I didn't have to pose for very long, but I decided to hang around and watch them work.  They wanted my opinion on everything they were drawing, and despite my limited knowledge of art, they really liked what I had to say.  They liked that I wanted to talk to them, and they wanted to know everything about me.  We talked about the most random things, but it was so much fun.  As Stage Crew, I don't actually have a lot of interaction with campers. Getting to spend time with the kids was one of the best times I've had so far this summer.  I don't know why they cared about what I thought, but they did and that made me feel really happy.

Sometimes as adults, we look at kids and we assume that we are the teachers.  But I learned that kids have a lot to say.  They have profound thoughts, and if we listen, they'll respect us and like us a lot.  If we listen, they can teach us a thing or two.  I haven't been an adult for very long, but I'm glad I learned this now.

There is a big concert today called Collage.  It's a smattering of all art forms, put on display for patrons to hear, see, and experience.  There's a thing called pre-Collage where visual artists put up stuff they've been working on.  It turns out, one of the buildings where they put up their art is in my rehearsal venue.  I walked in today, and saw all of this beautiful art on the wall.  As I was walking around, I saw a piece that really surprised me!  It was me, drawn by one of the high-schoolers during my first figure model session. You can see the very awkward pose I had to hold, but it sure does look amazing!  I couldn't believe that they had chosen their drawing of me to put on display.  Then one of my coworkers pointed out another drawing of that same pose, drawn from a different angle.  That session may have been miserable, but I'm glad I could be the inspiration behind the drawings :)  I'm so happy that I finally got to interact with the campers outside of turning the lights on for their rehearsals!  It kind of makes me want to do it again, and this time, the money will just be an added bonus to the real motivation behind why I do it.