(The models’ poses and outfits reference the films.) These themes range from art movements, such as surrealist artists Leonor Fini and Claude Cahun, to cinema, such as Jean-Luc Godard, Pedro Almodóvar, Bonnie and Clyde and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. A lot of the sessions are themed, and much time is spent on playlists, sets and costumes.”
“I wanted to open up a platform where the models can bring something creative to it. “I worked as a model myself for eight years,” says Miss Muse founder Michaela Meadow, who is also a photographer. As the name suggests, there’s an emphasis on the model-as-muse. One Melbourne institution that inspired him is Miss Muse Life Drawing, held every Tuesday at the Grace Darling hotel in Collingwood. “Even in life-drawing, Sydney is stuffy and conservative.”īurlesque performer Evana De Lune at Miss Muse Life Drawing in Melbourne. “They’re exactly the vibe I’m after – queer-inclusive, models that look different to each other,” he says. He took inspiration from clubs he’d seen in Melbourne, both in terms of having themes (Gladdy Drawing Club has covered Wonder Woman, Hulk and Wolverine) and booking models who have reputations in their own right. Twyford-Moore, an illustrator and a roadie, thought a life-drawing club would be a “cool throwback idea”. “And I also like to find people who appeal to the queer gaze.”
“It’s not about the typical male gaze,” says Twyford-Moore of the models. Gladdy shares a similar focus on finding a variety of bodies: Stein’s fellow models include performance artist Betty Grumble, showgirl Porcelain Alice, and couple Katie-Louise and Timothy Nicol-Ford, who run demi-couture label Nicol & Ford “for all identities and bodies”. Founded by Molly Crabapple in a New York dive bar in 2005, Dr Sketchy’s is now a global phenomenon. Most famously, there’s Dr Sketchy’s Anti-Art school, “alt-drawing” classes that use burlesque and cabaret performers as models. Increasingly, life-drawing classes are shaking off the tradition of fluoro-lit community halls and serious scribbling in favour of immersive evenings that rely on deep collaboration with the models. Ted Stein, being sketched by Jenny Valentish and Bligh Twyford-Moore.
“I’ve had spiders actually make webs between my limbs because I’ve been stationary for so long,” he says. He is busy constructing his own worlds, he says and in any case, he’s used to not moving for long periods of time when he’s engaged in his own art practice.
It also seems to be the perfect low-key gathering for types who don’t like being overly social.Īfter he has finished posing, I ask Stein about the challenge of being scrutinised. The man next to me is a scientist: this art club is the only burst of creativity he gets all week, he says. It is here that Stein’s friend, Bligh Twyford-Moore, and fellow artist Noni Cragg, run the Gladdy Drawing Club every Tuesday. I’ve had spiders actually make webs between my limbs of mine because I’ve been stationary for so long Ted Stein, model We speak after I’ve spent two hours breaking Stein’s athletic form down into shapes upstairs at the Lord Gladstone hotel in Sydney’s Chippendale – a groovy little pub covered in graffiti that’s both commissioned and spontaneous.