Scotland’s most famous nude model was the young Sir Sean Connery, who posed for students at Edinburgh College of Art. In April 2002, Glasgow City Council was ridiculed when it ordered a touring arts workshop to make sure its life models were fully clothed.The Royal Academy of Arts roadshow was allowed to use the models on every other workshop.The enhanced disclosure checks are usually required for teachers, doctors and other professionals working with children.
The Sunday Mail - NEWS - NO NUDES ARE BAD NUDES:
The Royal Academy of Arts is looking to make it’s life models undertake the same checks that professionals working with children need to take. I admit to some curiosity, in all of the life drawing situations I’ve been in the model has not talked to the group, just disrobed and posed. I assume that the check is to make sure that the models aren’t exhibitionists or something.. 
Maintaining objectivity is important which is why none of the models have chatted after taking off the robe.
I know quite a few people who may not have been able to maintain objectivity while drawing Sean Connery though.
Tags: art news, censorship, creating art, nudes
What is this? the model as an object? not a person? You might as well draw a bag of bones. As a model I want to see what is being drawn; and am interested in the thought behind it. The more I know, the more value I can deliver to my ‘customers’. No chat? that’s ******* stupid.
Also, if the artist works passionately, then this objectivity **** should be nowhere in sight. Go Leonardo, in the morgue.
Enhanced dislosure checks for life models!! Gahhh! This is mad bureaucracy.
I used to be a life model in North-west England. The youngest students I posed nude for were 15 - and that was just for a few weeks at a private school with a strong arts tradition, and they were pretty mature kids. Otherwise, my students were at least 16. You just do NOT pose nude for younger ones - no tutor would ask you, and no model would do it. So where’s the need for disclosure checks?
SK: The model *is* an object, as much of an object as a vase of flowers or an arrangement of textiles. The student has to look at you objectively, see you as lines, curves, tones and angles, in order to learn to draw. But I’ve never found any bar on (robed) models mingling with the students in the breaks, chatting and looking at the drawings, being a friendly human being. I did that with pretty much every class I sat for. It must be different in the US.
If the body is being seen as an object, or being used as an object ( such as a vase of flowers ), then you’ve missed the point of having a body, and you’d be better off getting out the bag of bones or joining Leonardo down at the morgue. The body is a machine for action. The held pose is frozen action; expressing dynamism; rhythm. Students or artists who are employing someone who is just acting as a bag of bones, or a vase of flowers, or wallpaper, aren’t getting their money’s worth. Discussion or consultation between artist and model about what pose can draw out the best from the artist, and what is possible from the model’s perspective, can be productive. The body can best be seen or observed without clothing: so we have clothesless modeling. Someone has to be without clothes. I have found not just studends, but also tutors who are uncomfortable with this situation, and that discomfort is somehow connected with sex.
The perceived need for disclosure checks is rooted in that attitude that the body is a ( sex ) object; and could during a modeling session be exhibited in such a manner ( though it’s more likely the artist is going to view the body as such ). Even without the disclosure issue, the attitude gets in the way of art or artistic progress; treats the model as an unskilled worker; and creates degraded working conditions for models.
@shem kerr
Well said.
So how does one get started as a nude model.. who do i look for to work with in the nude..
Frak, contact university art departments in your area. If administrators/professors are no help, advertise on physical bulletin boards in the department, or online bulletin boards/university classifieds. Beware of non-artist creeps!
Charge enough to make it worth your while, but do not expect to get rich from it. Consider it pocket cash, unless you’re one unique, in-demand model!
swnd me some extra ordinary nude pics
The art workshop here at a Texas university
reminded me about their need for models this (2007) fall. They sent out flyers to the various department buildings. Now they are advertising through your (Newspaper) article for artists to add to their skills. I chuckled to myself when I saw it. It was summer of 2006 when the art department had scheduled a life drawing class, one for fall and one for spring. They advertised for nude models with flyers all over. Just for a lark I thought I would volunteer, thinking there would be so many applicants that I might not even get called. But I was wrong they needed me I was told. The total number used that fall was four, three men and one woman. As far as the 20 students they were an equal balance of men to women. In the course of the semester I was called seven times. I did various quick one minute poses then poses for twenty minutes totally nude until near the end of the semester a sheet was used to simulate a roman toga for the shading, ripples and folds. Also some sitting poses. From back feed I was told one of the other male models was a young healthy muscular black man and he was able to do and hold poses that I couldn’t. The girl had some extra padding but volunteered twice. The young teen boy posed shirtless but with his pants on. He did bare it all one time in the spring.
The Art Department offers this course only once every three or four years. Undergraduate art students must register for this class sometime in their degree plan before graduating. It’s the same in most art programs at any Texas University.
I was needed in the Spring (2007). I got a call from the instructor. I was to model again for a new class of coed students. They had a balance of about 10 girls to 11 guys. But as luck would have it, only two males and one girl volunteered to pose. It was I and the bashful nineteen year old boy who were the only males. The girl had scheduling problems and she finally did it once. The boy bared it all one time and never came back again, even when he was scheduled. Again I ended up being the only macho guy that helped the students get live drawing as I moved into different poses for the whole semester. Standing naked in a large room with high ceilings near the end of the fall semester one can get chilly. The instructor provided a floor heater to keep the goose bumps off
I was surprised by a phone call one day around twelve O’clock early this fall 2007 semester. I was asked if I would volunteer to model that afternoon for the workshop since a conflict of scheduling caused a cancelation and I was needed. I said I would but I have a class on Wednesday. They called since I was on their active modeling list. I said I could do it on Thursdays and so said the original model. Thus they changed the workshop time that next week and it has been working fine on Thursdays I hear. Well they scheduled me for the next Thursday and I worked from 2 till 430. I haven’t been called back.
What caught my eye was the title of your article. I have a folder of stories that other models have gone through with their first experiences of posing in the buff. Their articles have titles like: “Taking it all off for art’s sake;” “Nude models portray art of assurance;” “Naked and the Dread;” “Models ‘expose’ students to nude art. “ etc.
After a whole year, where were all those fellows with their great testosterone attitude? Why are they so timid? What I have found is that modeling for universities do not pay enough for professional models to apply. For students who need extra money the amount paid is welcomed. It seems that the pool of volunteers have dwindled in many places. News flash England “Students at Warwickshire College are suffering from a shortage of nude models.” “University of Maryland (in 2005) have too few nude models.” “John Winslow a 45 year old lawyer from Washington was the center of attention but he wasn’t arguing a case in front of a jury. Instead, 30 art students watched intently as he stood stark naked and posed. Winslow is one of just a few nude models in the universities drawing classes – a shrinking group of people willing to bare it all for the sake of art.”
My suggestion would be to require each art students as they apply for the life drawing classes to stir up some friends of theirs to volunteer al least one time, and that would take care of the lack
Oh I forgot to tell you I am 76 years old. I am a graduate student.