Going through this old portfolio my nephew found, I recovered several drawings I made in a figure study class taught by Bebe Wolfe at the Millsaps continuing education department.
"Figure Studies" means nude models if you've never had an art class. Since much of art is built on the human form, figure studies classes are an important part of most art education. Lucy Millsaps also offered a course in Figure Studies as part of the regular Millsaps curricula, but she used students in leotards as models because she didn't want a bunch of angry Methodist Ministers calling her a heathen. Having known her most of my life, I'm pretty sure Lucy wasn't a heathen, not in the traditional sense anyway. I loved her to pieces. She spent many years watching out for my brother and I.
There were around twelve people in the class: two other Millsaps students, watercolorist Sudie Manning, and my dad's best friend, Rowan Taylor, who arrived late. An actual genius, Rowan could do almost anything. Later in life, he married Suzanna Maars, who was also an actual genius.
Usually, when you think of a nude artist model, you think of a very fit, very Papillon-Free person, and sometimes they were, but often they weren't. The first model was a very thin, very feminine young man who looked terrified. He stood in the middle of the class and dropped his robe, and I heard both Rowan and Mrs. Manning audibly exhale. I asked them both if it made them uncomfortable for me to be in the class with them. They both said "no," but they were lying. They stuck it out, though.
The class lasted about twelve weeks. I produced maybe fifty to a hundred sketches, most just gesture drawings, but some more finished. When my nephew brought me my old drawing portfolio, I noticed five or six of them survived.
One of the class models was also a Millsaps student and a Facebook friend. You can try to guess which one. I'm kind of glad that drawing still exists, but I was surprised it did. Obviously, I can't show it on Facebook. Maybe one day, I'll get permission to frame it.
