Scenes From An Exhibition
In my twenties, I studied for an art history degree but rarely turned up to lectures, preferring to spend my time drinking and modelling for artists in order to make enough money to drink. The first time I posed I burnt the skin of my calf on a space heater that had been placed too close to me. It was the middle of winter. Art classes are often held in the airy rooms of poorly insulated buildings. Most have wooden floors, between the slats of which whistle cold winds. The windows are many. They provide great light — beautiful cold light, that falls through the thin panes onto the goosebumped flesh of the model. The squares of glass rattle when a double decker bus drives past and are cobwebbed with fractures from errant tree branches flinging themselves against the glass in stormy weather, or from being mobbed by the bodies of pigeons who simply want out of this life completely. The ceilings are high. The radiators, if they exist, are turned off to save money. And so space heaters are pushed towards the model, ones that bathe your flesh in their pleasant glow, if you’re lucky. Ones that blow burnt, dusty air towards you if you’re not.
As if having a hairdryer aimed at my skin, I let the heater burn me for the duration of my pose. Three minutes, five, ten, who can remember? I know that the thought of rearranging myself to provide physical relief was much less important to me than remaining completely still for the benefit of a group of people I had never met before. This, then, was the formative start of my career as a model. I wanted to be as still as possible for as long as possible. I wanted to be supernaturally still. I wanted the movement of my eyelashes as I blinked to be like a tidal wave crashing against the planes of my face, such would be the stillness of every other part of me. I ached, I itched. A solitary bead of sweat would run down my side, followed by another. It would fall darkly to the dusty floor underneath me. Let these be the only betrayals of life in my body!
My grandmother loved to talk about the amount of pain she was forced to endure throughout her life. She listed her ailments at length, she lay on the floor if she felt she weren’t getting enough attention, she took to bed during my parents’ wedding and my mum, in her wedding dress, attended to her. My mother was raised to keep complaints to herself, to absorb the suffering of others and to keep attention seeking behaviour, in general, to a minimum. I’m a combination of both of these women, equal parts secret keeper and storyteller. In The Cost of Living Deborah Levy says ‘Serenity is supposed to be one of the main characters in old-fashioned femininity's cultural personality. She is serene and she endures. Yes, she is so talented at enduring and suffering they might even be the main characters in her story.’