The Naked Bathroom/ The Muse

What am I going to write about tonight? I know I don’t want to write about anything painful, I think to myself.

I turned down the gas logs, poured some more wine, then went to the bathroom to pee. I call it The Naked Bathroom. There are 6 of my figure drawings in there, and all but one are nudes.

Directly across from the toilet, is a 24″ x 36″ framed drawing of a nude female from 1979. It is one of the oldest framed pieces of mine in the house. It is a frontal nude and the majority of the image is her torso. She is cropped above her mouth and below her pubic hair.

This is a charcoal drawing created when I was 19 years old at the University of Georgia.

It was fall quarter, the first of my sophomore year. I was eager to take this class. And scared. Jim Herbert, the professor, had God-like status in the art department, and he knew it. He was rumored to be over 40, but had a body that begged to dispute. I used to see him running the streets of Athens, nude, save a tiny pair of athletic shorts and shoes. He wore his wiry, grey-tinged hair tied back in a ponytail. One year at Halloween, he covered his body in gold paint…like a hedonistic Oscar statue. My roommate and I speculated about his sexuality, and if he liked boys or girls, or both.

Within the first week of class, I was hook, line, and sinker in love with drawing the human body. Our model the first day of class was a buff fellow with straight blond hair in a bowl cut. For the first hour, I only drew him from the waist up. It wasn’t the first time I had seen a penis. But it was the first time I had seen a penis as a thing to be drawn.

In class, all of the figure drawings were done with charcoal on newsprint paper. The female nude in the Naked Bathroom is seriously aged to a caramel color. 40+ years of the acid in the paper created the patina. Newsprint was cheap, and ideal for us newbies to figure drawing. The idea was the practice of drawing, not necessarily creating anything of lasting beauty.

This drawing is made with an economy of contour outlines. Only the hair, lips and nipples are filled in. Her parted lips reveal her teeth. One arm extends out of the picture plane. The other is bent, with a relaxed hand hanging in space. As I look at her, it feels like she’s been caught in motion. A little dance maybe?

I remember immediately knowing that this was a really strong drawing.

I looked forward eagerly to this figure-drawing class. We had a lot of very good models, each bringing some new aspect of masculinity, femininity, and androgyny to the party. They were my new heroes.

About midway through the quarter, Jim told us that the allotment of model money was running low. He said that we would go a week without models, and instead we would be drawing fish from the local market.

The thought of this caused a deep panic in me. I was on a roll; my drawings of the figure were at a higher level than they had ever been. And what about the adrenaline rush I experienced as I drew these bodies? Surely that could never happen drawing a fish. Looking back, I can see that I was in the throes of addiction. I had a new drug that created a high like no other. And it was about to be taken away from me. For a week. And I was afraid of what might happen to me and my art.

Paul Scales was a slightly-built hippy-boy model that I particularly enjoyed drawing. He had shaggy blond hair and an attitude of coolness that was irresistible. I shyly thanked him for his poses after class one day, and we connected in a friendly way. Paul and I would bum cigarettes off of each other.

In those days almost everyone in the art department smoked cigarettes. We even smoked in the classroom while drawing. I know it was unhealthy as hell, but cigarette smoking created such a bond in those days. I’d love to know what creates a bond in art class now, at the university.

At the risk of rejection, I asked Paul if he ever modeled outside of the classroom. He said yes, but he didn’t have a car and I would have to provide transportation. I picked him up the following Saturday morning and brought him back to the duplex I shared with three other women.

My roommate Cindie was totally aware of what was going down on this day. I was bringing a boy back to my room, where he would strip down and I would draw him naked. I left the door slightly cracked to let the heat in better for Paul. Cindie passed the door more times than she needed to, but I don’t think she ever really got a good look.

Drawing in my bedroom bore no resemblance to drawing in the classroom. The only place for Paul to pose was on my twin bed. Did I even have an easel for my huge newsprint pad? I don’t remember. There were no memorable drawings made in my bedroom that Saturday.

After our session, I asked Paul if he would like some hot tea before we got into my cold car. He did. Paul sat at our kitchen table wearing only his long underwear bottoms. They were the old fashioned, oatmeal colored kind. I made us a couple of mugs of Constant Comment tea. The windows were fogged from the cold, but our kitchen was cozy. It felt very intimate. It’s only now, looking back, that I realize what was happening.

According to Wikipedia: In modern figurative usage, a MUSE is a literal person or supernatural force that serves as someone’s source of artistic inspiration.

At my kitchen table in a duplex outside of Athens, Georgia, I became aware of the Muse. I’m so grateful for that first experience…and all the many Muses that have followed.

I have a drawing of Paul from Jim Herbert’s class. It, like the woman in the Naked Bathroom, is from 1979. He is shimmery, youthful, androgynous and ethereally innocent. I love it that he was my first Muse.

Epilogue:

Paul Scales lived in a rented room in Jim Herbert’s victorian house in Athens….as did many artists and musicians. Paul was a musician, originally from Macon, Georgia, and I think I remember him telling me of some of his interactions with the Allman Brothers Band. Paul was a co-founder of The 40 Watt Club in Athens. He was an incredible talent on the harmonica, and played blues piano as well. In 2015, at the age of 57, Paul died suddenly of a heart attack. At this writing, Jim Herbert is 87 years old and lives in Athens.