It was my 200th Posing session on August 15, 2017. It was Tuesday Night Open Draw @ Artist’s Guild in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. I paid for the draw outright, free for everyone, and asked everyone not to tip me… except perhaps with artwork, to commemorate this special occasion.
On the break, while we were enjoying champagne and snacks set out for the celebration, I was approached by a very soft-spoken man who was introduced as “Jerry the dairy farmer.” He was a friend of Jeff & Sarah, the owners of the Guild, and was attending his very first figure draw ever. He had arrived late, because he had to “milk the girls” first!
He held out a graphite drawing on a tattered piece of yellow sketchbook paper, recently torn out, and said, “I know people are giving you art, as you asked, but I’ve never drawn before. I don’t know if you want this, but if you do… well then, you may have it.” Then he offered me the piece.
Taking it carefully in my hands I loved it instantly. He had spent more time drawing what I was sitting on, than he did drawing me, lol. With a quivering voice I told him: “Jerry, there are some wonderful pieces of art being made here tonight… and I love these artists… and I love the pieces they are making. But there is a special glow that comes from your piece, and it moves me! It shines!”
He seemed surprised, but I continued… “Where else in the world can I get a ‘Joseph’ made by the hands of a man who just got done ‘milking the girls?’ Where else can I get a ‘Joseph’ made as the very first piece of art from a man of the soil, who’s difficult work helps feed the world?”
This piece truly represents what figure art means to me! Drawing the world around us, and each other, is freeing and marvelous and quirky and wonderful and beautiful and… important… art belongs to everyone!
