The phallic wine bottle

This weekend, I had two bookings at the same time.  Back at the beginning of the year, Alison and I agreed that I would step back from the modelling a bit and offer the jobs to other models, but we had nobody available for either of these jobs, so I did a bit of interviewing to find some new staff.  But since I always want one experienced staff member at every job, we decided that Alison would work with the new guy at the Fiddler's Elbow, while I worked at the Standard.

My class was a lot of fun, though I didn't completely relax until I knew that the model for Alison's one had turned up.  I made sure he had all the relevant information in plenty of time, and I got a text from him to let me know he was on his way, but I still wasn't fully happy until - about fifteen minutes after that - I called Alison to find out if he had arrived.  From then on, I knew everything was cool and relaxed into my own job.

When the girls arrived, two of them came downstairs to introduce themselves and we talked through the introduction options.  What we came up with was a lot of fun.  We decided that I would introduce it like it was a boring art class - something that Alison normally does on my behalf.

The girls left to get their friends, while I waited - still fully dressed, which felt deeply unusual and somehow wrong.  While they were gone, I wrote on the blackboard -

Art class

1 Bowl of fruit

2 Wine bottle

3 Chair and volunteer

When they came back in, I settled them all down and started talking.  I introduced the concept as a straightforward art class, claimed to be their tutor, pointed out the "lesson plan", waffled something about teaching them things like "composition" and "shading" and threw in a couple of other vaguely arty terms I've heard over the years.  Then I apologised for having forgotten the fruit and left the room to find a suitable alternative.

When I walked back in - naked at last - the response was great.  I spent a minute or two staying within the character I had already established and pretended I wasn't aware I was naked, grabbed a wine bottle and told them we were going to skip the first lesson and move on to the second one.  I said I would hold the bottle they were supposed to draw and recommended that they pay particular attention to its dimensions - the length and girth of the bottle were particularly important.  Then I told them that other groups had complained about this exercise.  There had been allegations that the bottle had been unnecessarily phallic and had therefore had sexual connotations, but that was clearly ridiculous.

I'm not sure entirely when the character was dropped, but it was definitely not one that could have been maintained throughout the class.  It would have become boring and limiting.  But it was definitely a fun one to kick off with.  I love how it's things like this that makes every class different and unique.

A slight disappointment was that the bride never once seemed to be fooled by the act.  I was convincing enough - I'm pretty sure of that.  But it's fair to say that when your friends are being mysterious and taking you into a strange place, then they've surely got more lined up than a basic art class.  As soon as I told her my name, she started laughing, because that's the name of her fiancé.  And she said something about never looking at him the same way again.  That was a clear hint that she was already anticipating a bit more than just an art lesson.  But I didn't let any trivial details like that get in the way.  I just carried right on right up to… and for a while after… the big reveal.

That was a really fun part of the class, though.  It kind of set the tone in a very fun way, so the girls instantly knew they could be a bit cheeky and relax into the whole thing.  Then, later, when I asked for the two volunteers - model and co-ordinator - it also meant that I could introduce the cheeky props.  A whip, a sort-of-flogger-type-of-thing, a pair of leather wrist cuffs with a flimsy chain linking them and a toy Dalek that once held some shampoo.  The first co-ordinator set the first model up bent over a chair, with me standing behind her like I was going to whip her and one of her friends drew her like she was a horse.  It's interesting to see what kind of directions the various peoples' imaginations will take them in.  

The second co-ordinator put me in the cuffs and blindfolded the second model - which essentially seemed to make us both submissive, without a dominant party in sight.  Perhaps she should have been a model all over again and filled that particular void.

Once it was all done, I counted up the scores and complained that they were too even - a bit dull - so started subtracting and adding points from people for trivial offences or random reasons.  Then I arrived at a result.  Then I remembered that I hadn't totalled up the scores for the winning pictures, so the previous result was voided while I came up with a new one.  All of which just kept creating more and more chaos when it came to actually coming up with a winner, before I could make a final announcement.  Thankfully, it's moments of blatant amateurism like this, that these classes thrive on.  I can get away with cock-ups like this, as long as I acknowledge them and make a joke out of them.

Perhaps, for a future class, I should set up a score for myself, as well - and the girls will be allowed to award and detract points on my score.  That might be fun.