[aktdrawing]

This time, a bit shorter text from Canada. There are two pics (sadly, not showing any highlights, as usual) but I couldn't add them here for some reason.


hxxps://www.guelphmercury.com/life/fine-art-models-dispel-myths-about-posing-nude/article_1ef8d01b-678e-563e-b8ef-4443ee668a17.html


WINNIPEG — Since taking her first uncertain steps into a University of Manitoba sketch class eight years ago, Marley Rae McDuff has been inviting people to look.

Now, the fine art model wants them to listen.

“I want people to have a better understanding about what it is that a fine art model does,” said McDuff, 40. “It’s serious. It’s work. It’s hard work for many people. And it’s not something to be ashamed of.”

Because sometimes shame is pushed on fine art models, McDuff said. Shame, and stigma: the guy who told her that what she was doing was immoral and “no better than pornography.” The friend who told her that it wasn’t “really work.”

Not so, say the 286 members of the reDEFINEartsconnective. It’s a group of fine art models aiming to fight stigma, strengthen the industry, and show the world how beautiful their work can be, even before it makes it to a gallery wall.

McDuff founded the group in 2008. At first, it was slow to grow. “It was more like me by myself,” she says with a laugh. “Some big collective.”

Now, the models are uniting behind the cause: in the last year, reDEFINE’s membership has exploded.

Shortly after Muriel Torchia stumbled on the reDEFINEartsconnective’s Facebook page of job opportunities two years ago, she found herself standing nude before members of the Winnipeg Sketch Club.

Now, she’s hooked. “I didn’t expect I’d be doing it for this long,” said Torchia, 27. “It’s been really rewarding. It’s made me a lot more confident.”

But Torchia, who models for the Winnipeg Art Gallery, has also seen the stereotypes. One would-be photographer asked if she did anything “extra, off-camera.” Others assume her relationship with her fiancé must be on the rocks.

“Artistic modelling is not sexual in nature,” she said. “There is a difference between nudity and sexuality. If this was Europe, or South America, I don’t think there’d be the same derogatory idea that comes with it. Here, people are like ‘Oh my goodness, you pose nude? What do people think of this?’ ”

Torchia, McDuff and other members of the collective are ready to show Winnipeg just what the art modelling world is made of. They’re working on a breast cancer benefit show; they hold safety seminars; they advocate for healthy wages and increased awareness of the challenges of posing for an artist’s pen.

“It’s essential,” said Winnipeg artist Robert Sim. “You need to be familiar with what a body looks like, how they move. You can work from photographs, but you’ll learn far less about the construction of the body. And then when it comes to constructing figures out of your imagination ... it will be exceedingly difficult.”

To help artists master that understanding, Torchia, McDuff and their peers will explode in goosebumps in an unheated studio, twist their bodies into striking poses, and hold still for hours.

They can make anywhere from $15 to $40 an hour.

“I would like to see someone else actively stand or lie in the same position for even 15 minutes without moving or appearing different.” Torchia laughs. “It’s not always an easy job to do.”