Modeling Life by Sarah R. Phillips

Author:Sarah R. Phillips [Phillips, Sarah R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 0791469077
Goodreads: 9929664
Published: 2006-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

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SIX

“Denise”

DENISE ARRIVED FOR our first interview dressed like any other Portland woman in her early twenties: jeans, a t-shirt, and a fleece jacket. With shoulder-length dark hair and no makeup, she still had the fresh-faced look of a young college student. She was thin and energetic. Her speech was peppered with “like,” “cool,” and “you know.” She had been an easy interview to schedule. She was excited to be part of a study, and she was eager to please: she wor-ried about giving the “right” answers or that her answers might “wreck” my research. She arrived exactly on time for our interview. Later, I would learn that promptness and reliability are virtues common to life models. Because their work is irregular, occurring at odd hours, on different days of the week, and in different locations around town, they grow accustomed to scheduling appointments over the phone and arriving on time for those appointments.

In all of my months of interviews, I had only one person fail to show up for an interview and almost never had to reschedule meetings. In fact, I learned that if I wanted to arrive a few minutes early to collect my thoughts before we began, I would have to arrive very early indeed, since many models also arrived before our appointed time, with the same intention.

Many models first learn about life modeling while they are in college, taking art classes either as part of their major or to fulfill general course requirements. Denise, however, had been introduced to the work of art modeling earlier than most when she took a life class in high school. She liked the class and decided to pursue a bachelor of fine arts when she went to college. There, her interests quickly moved away from figure drawing, toward photography and illustration. She finally returned to the life studio only seven months before our interview and as a model rather than an artist.

She was reintroduced to life modeling by her boyfriend. She’d moved to Portland shortly after finishing school and needed money. Her boyfriend told her how models in Portland earned ten dollars an hour, well above minimum 69

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