Naked vs. RAW

Photo By Lindley Battle

When I turned 18 I became a nude model for figure drawing classes at The University of Toledo.  It was a dream I had since I was a girl probably close to 4.  When I was young my parents had friends, an older couple Chet and Blossom, that they rented land from to grow vegetables, they sold those vegetables on a roadside stand. Blossom was tall and skinny, in fact she was so thin that it almost looked like her skin had been stretched over bone, she seemed old and ancient to me with short all white hair. She lived out in the country with Chet in a very tiny house (way before tiny houses were trendy) that had many different dried herbs hanging from the dark rafters of their unfinished ceiling. I was enchanted by this woman, taken with her really, I thought that she might even be a witch.  Blossom was the kind of woman who leaves an impression and she left me wanting to be like her when I grew up, living in the country in a tiny house, growing and drying herbs, making little kids think you’re a witch.

My mom would take us to the art museum, and oddly The Toledo Museum of Art is world class, housing works by Renoir, Rodin, Degas, Picassos, and many many pieces from artists who’s names you’d know. I grew up thinking every city had art museums like ours.  After we would walk the halls of my favorite impressionist rooms seeing colorful ballet dancers by Degas we would sometimes head over to the wing that included student pieces. Often my mom would point to a piece and say, "I think that's Blossom".  Because Blossom modeled for the art classes there.  In awe and admiration I would look up at the piece and say "I'm going to be a model for art classes too".  My mom completely to her credit and unphased would just reply something like "well, you'll have to wait until you're 18, they don't let kids model for art classes."  and then my mantra became, "Ok, I'll be a nude model when I turn 18".  I was in awe of the fact that we, us, normal every day humans could become art hanging on the walls of museums.

For a rather self conscious teenager, I'm not entirely sure where I got the guts to actually go through with this other than I had said that I would do it so many times as a kid and I felt like this was the first time I could prove to myself that I would follow through on what I said I'd do. I can wholeheartedly report I’m glad I did that especially when I did it.

I'm not sure what I expected it to be like but it was much harder than I anticipated.  At the time I was still trying to make myself as physically small as possible, trying to make myself invisible, but when you model like that you're on a raised platform with bright lights focused directly on you in front of a class completely naked.  It certainly was much less glamorous than I had imagined it would be.  I was always very warm if not hot because of the spotlights focused directly on me, not to mention trying to stay completely still for up to 45 minutes at a time.  This was before I had a strong meditation practice and it was mentally and physically excruciating.  

Modeling for those art classes taught me something about tenacity, and follow-through yes, but it taught me a lot more about my own self image, and choosing to see myself as I believed myself to be.  There was always a break midway through the class. I'd get to robe up, and get marked with tape by the professor so that I could assume the exact same posture I had been in before the break when we resumed.  I'd take that time to wake my limbs back up (they’d always painfully fall asleep), and then I’d walk around and look at what all of the students had drawn.  

Every single picture of me looked different. That was when I first realized that yes, everyone has a different ability to translate what they see onto paper, but it's also because none of us see the world the same way.  None of us focus on the same things.  Modeling for those art classes help me see myself as a more full being beyond a number on the scale, beyond the limited view of myself that I had.  I realized if those students could see all of those different aspects of me then I could choose to expand my view of myself too.  

Standing in front of a room completely naked wasn't as scary as it sounds, nor as revealing as it sounds, because for the most part we all have the same bits and pieces, we are all made up of skin, muscle, bones and water and I’ve never been one to be ashamed of the body even if I haven’t been comfortable in my own skin. Naked is just the natural state of things.

But naked isn't that vulnerable. Naked isn’t raw. No, the thing that's really revealing, the thing that's really vulnerable is when we share who we are with someone, when we share our stories, when we let each other into what's going on in our heads.  That's truly getting naked, truly getting RAW.   I'm not Brene Brown, I haven't spent decades researching vulnerability, but I can tell you I know from experience that when you are able to be vulnerable, when you are able to be real, and honest and open, that's when relationships form and become enhanced.  

When we let others see us, and I don’t mean the naked us, when we let others see what’s inside our hearts, that’s when magic happens.