Draw Me Like One of Your French Girls

A year-and-a-half ago, the last child living in my house moved into a college dorm. As much as I knew I would miss her, I was surprised by how much passing her empty bedroom could feel like a kick in the gut. I nevertheless saw in this an opportunity to forge an identity for myself separate from that of “mother.” Now in my 50s I couldn’t return to who I was pre-kid, with the cute outfits and parties I enjoyed when I lived in New York. But I wanted to be out in the world again. No need to negotiate with my husband who would be responsible for making family dinner, or who needed to help the kid with her homework, my weeknights were my own to plan.

That’s when I decided to pursue life drawing.

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Drawing is something I loved as a child and young adult but let go of once I decided I wasn’t good enough to make it a career. As I now saw it, life drawing would return me to a former self, but also to another way of seeing the world. Instead of getting lathered up by relentlessly grim news cycles or sucked into the distracting but addictive parade of reels fed to me by the algorithm, I could instead focus on the simple act of looking at what was physically in front of me and then trying to accurately recreate what I saw.

Life Drawing Boston seemed perfect. Meeting for two and half hours every Tuesday in an art studio near Somerville’s Union square, LDB, as it’s also called, is not an art class. There is no formal instruction or instructors. You drop in when you want, pay $15, and get free access to snacks, art supplies and a nude model.

Drawing is something I loved as a child and young adult but let go of once I decided I wasn’t good enough to make it a career. As I now saw it, life drawing would return me to a former self, but also to another way of seeing the world. Instead of getting lathered up by relentlessly grim news cycles or sucked into the distracting but addictive parade of reels fed to me by the algorithm, I could instead focus on the simple act of looking at what was physically in front of me and then trying to accurately recreate what I saw.

Once you step into the studio, festooned with plants and Christmas lights and drawings taped to every wall, you are expected to turn off your tech and tune into your environment. Your job for the duration of the session is simply to pay attention and sketch the model in the middle of the room, hopefully improving your draftsmanship as the weeks go by. For me, a writer and teacher by profession, it’s a quiet kind of relief. Drawing lets me use the other side of my brain for a while and it feels good to work with my hands.

The session begins with quick sketches of the model in short 30-second poses working up to one minute, five, then 10 minutes. There are two breaks and, after the second, we have two long poses at 20 minutes each. During the breaks, we’re instructed to keep our phones turned off and speak with someone we don’t know. At the start of each meeting, the organizer, a wiry hipster with a blonde beard and coveralls offers icebreakers:

“What would you call the sound a snail makes when it moves?”

“Is a hot dog a sandwich?”

“If you were on a pirate ship, would you prefer to be the captain or a crew member?”

But something I noticed on returning to this space each week, is that age-wise I’m in the minority. Most of the attendees, especially the regulars who help set up and sometimes take part in improv shows in the studio on weekends, are in their 20s and early 30s. I imagine the older folks have kids at home and the much older folks don’t feel comfortable cramming into metal fold-up chairs pressed against strangers on all sides, or sitting on the floor when the seats fill up, which they inevitably do.

The generation gap didn’t bother me much at first. I’m a pretty friendly person. And I don’t actually see myself as older. In my head I’m about 32. So it came as a surprise when members of the community responded to me as an older woman.

One week the random question was, “What advice would you give your younger self?” I turned to my neighbors, two young women in matching cat eye makeup. One of them turned to me and said, “Why don’t you start, since you have more years on you.”

Another time, I was talking with one of the organizers about a side session she runs at the studio, an all-women, all-nude drawing group. No models. Everyone is nude and just draws each other for a couple of hours. “We’d really like some older women to come,” she said to me with an eager smile, adding, “People say they miss sharing communal spaces with their mothers!” I laughed awkwardly. This did not interest me.

The generation gap didn’t bother me much at first. I’m a pretty friendly person. And I don’t actually see myself as older. In my head I’m about 32. So it came as a surprise when members of the community responded to me as an older woman. One week the random question was, “What advice would you give your younger self?” I turned to my neighbors, two young women in matching cat eye makeup. One of them turned to me and said, “Why don’t you start, since you have more years on you.”

And then there were the times when I’d start chatting up a neighbor, only to discover they’d lose interest in talking with me, appearing to prefer the conversation of other young people. Not with their friends but with strangers. Logically, I get it. If they don’t see me as their mother, maybe they see me as a teacher type. I am a teacher for a living, after all. But it still hurts my feelings. Nevertheless, I keep returning. I love dirtying my hands with charcoal and practicing the looseness required for quick sketches. Sometimes I even love my drawings.

Each week, a different professional model comes to pose. To their credit, the organizers are committed to body diversity. There have been large women and athletic women, including a self-described “dancer” who put out a jar for extra tips. I’ve seen middle-aged men with shaved genitalia. Trans men who proudly display their top surgery scars. We’ve had white models, Black models, Asian and Latinx models. I’ve seen piercings and tattoos of all sorts. And yet, I had never seen a middle-aged woman take the stage.

After a particularly difficult session trying to draw a middle-aged male model in an uninspired pose, I thought, you know, I could do this. There’s an expression, “Lord, grant me the confidence of a mediocre white man.” I was gaining that confidence. Why not me?

Occasionally, because of some mix-up, the organizer has asked for an on-the-spot volunteer model from the room. I’ve only seen young women volunteer but I decided to be ready. So some Tuesdays, I’d trim my nether regions and spritz myself with a favorite perfume, just in case. But the opportunity never arose. And I put it out of my mind.

Then, one night, on a whim, I reached out to the main organizer on Instagram:

“I don’t know if you do this, but I’d like to ‘apply’ to be a model. I’m pretty fit and flexible and I think I’d do a good job.” (In addition to taking up drawing in my empty nesting phase, I’d also become a regular at my local gym.)

“Dude, I made a mistake in the schedule,” he answered. “Could you do it tonight?”

Reader, I said yes.

That night, I took an extra shower, lotioned my skin, made up my face, and packed a bag full of props, including a large picture hat with a blue ribbon, a jet bead necklace, and a parasol. And of course, a cotton kimono to wear during the breaks. As I pulled out of the driveway, bags in the passenger seat, I asked myself, am I really going to do this?

One night, on a whim, I reached out to the main organizer on Instagram: “I don’t know if you do this, but I’d like to ‘apply’ to be a model. I’m pretty fit and flexible and I think I’d do a good job.” (In addition to taking up drawing in my empty nesting phase, I’d also become a regular at my local gym.) “Dude, I made a mistake in the schedule,” he answered. “Could you do it tonight?” Reader, I said yes.

Posing nude as a 54-year-old woman ranks high on the fear factor scale. I’d say it’s akin to bungee jumping or sky diving. Instead of trying to hide my physical insecurities, with the padded bra, the long skirt that covers my varicose veins and cellulite, I was going to strip everything off. No hiding. No filters. Just me under a strong, direct light for two and a half hours on a stage in the middle of a massive art studio packed with strangers. Adrenaline thrummed through my body on the rush hour drive from West Cambridge to Somerville. I thought of calling someone—a close friend or my daughter—to talk it through, but I decided to keep this expedition to myself.

I should add that I’ve never been an exhibitionist, nor do I feel very comfortable with public nudity. Raised motherless by a single dad, locker rooms and saunas full of naked women have always made me nervous. Embarrassed by what I saw as my pale, too-late-to-develop, unfeminine figure, I’d keep myself wrapped in a towel with my eyes downcast, thinking, if I don’t look at anyone else’s body, they might not look at mine. As a teenager, while friends wore short skirts and tight sweaters, I prefered to wear my father's long dress shirts and oversized blue jeans. I tightened the waist by fastening the belt loops with a paperclip. Thankfully in the 1980s, androgyny was fashionable.

As my body started to fill out and my grandmother made mention of my developing “bosom,” I continued to hide myself. I had crushes on boys, but felt at sea about how to get their attention. No one had taught me how to wear makeup or find body-flattering clothes. Only in my 20s did I start to gain confidence in my body and enjoy the attention it could attract in the right outfit and heels.

That sort of attention faded, as it does, when I became a mother. My body was now in service to my children. Breastfeeding deflated my already modest “bosom.” Elusive sleep left me with dark circles and worry lines. I wanted to look sexy on nights out with my husband, but I still felt like, “Look, mom got dressed up!”

But as I dropped my robe that night in the studio, felt the air against my skin, and stepped onto the stage for the first set of poses, I couldn’t help but smile. And then, quite unexpectedly, that smile stayed fixed on my face for the duration of the two and a half hours. I had the flexibility and strength to hold angular poses, which, from my experience as an artist in the room, I knew would make interesting compositions. And I could hold them for lengths of time, which made me feel proud and strong.

I chose not to wear my glasses so I wouldn’t be able to see everyone looking at me. I could hear the din of a hundred people in simultaneous conversation, but I couldn’t take part. So I started to let my mind drift, and lose myself in my thoughts. And as I did, a growing sense of disbelief washed over me. Who do I think I am up here? A shameless hussie? Splayed out naked on the stage, I felt like I was sticking my thumb in the eye of patriarchy.

I couldn’t help but feel like I was getting away with something. You see me as a middle-aged lady, not worthy of a second glance? Well, you’re looking at me now. And I am fit, and I am flexible. Yes, my stomach is poochy. I’ve birthed two children. And in the words of Nora Ephron, I don’t like my neck. Or my knees. Or my hands, when I look at them up close. But this is a body, a real body in the world. And it has served me well for 54 years. It has traveled, worked hard, suffered loss and trauma. And everyone in this audience of young artists, this is your future, too, if you’re lucky. Aging comes for all of us.

Posing nude as a 54-year-old woman ranks high on the fear factor scale. I’d say it’s akin to bungee jumping or sky diving. Instead of trying to hide my physical insecurities, with the padded bra, the long skirt that covers my varicose veins and cellulite, I was going to strip everything off. No hiding. No filters. Just me under a strong, direct light for two and a half hours on a stage in the middle of a massive art studio packed with strangers.

Posing nude was both an in-body and out-of-body experience. During my time on stage I was reduced to my bare naked figure, but that body, while mine, also felt not mine as I posed and turned in service to the needs of the room.

During the first break, I wrapped myself in my long cotton kimono, and toured the room to grab grapes and cheese off the snack table and peek at everyone’s work in progress. This was the moment of truth. What would I find on these pads of paper? Some hidden angle on my menopausal body? Instead I noted the wide variety of talent and style. Some artists worked in pencil or charcoal, others in watercolor or bright pastels. In one image I am headless, just breasts and belly shaped by shadow and light. In another I’m a set of loose lines, the contours of a lean female figure angled into a series of positions. In looking at the images, I could see some semblance of myself, but the body and face I saw weren’t really mine so much as a medium for light and form, a tool for artists to practice their craft.

As I continued to circle the studio, I also felt like a celebrity. I didn’t know everyone, but they certainly knew me. I confronted a long line for the single stall bathroom, but once I approached, everyone nodded reverentially and motioned me to the front.

At the end of the night, the room gave me a warm round of applause. After two and a half hours of quick poses and then long poses, my back and limbs ached. I was thirsty and hungry. But I did it. The organizer told everyone that I’d appreciate a few sketches to keep, so as I pulled on my robe, artists lined up to give me a selection of their drawings. One signed his with, “Damn, I can’t believe you’re not a professional model.”

My husband framed my favorite of these drawings last Christmas and hung it on our living room wall. To look at it now is to see not just my naked body rendered in pink, grey and white charcoal. It’s a portrait of a braver me, a 54-year-old woman with nothing to hide.

An earlier, related essay by :

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