A muse's job

According to Germane Greer "a muse's job is to penetrate the male artist and bring forth a work from the womb of his mind". As you will know I have a deep interest in the model/artist relationship. The complex process which the model and the artist enter into, has as its product a drawing. And from a drawing one can detect whether something special is taking place within the dialogue at any one time. At 'extreme poses' we have five 30 minute poses, mostly with the model suspended 'up in the ropes'. For me, at best, something special takes place during one, sometimes two, of the five poses. Today was, I feel, and believe, quite extraordinary. I am pleased with all five drawings. But, more than this, I feel I entered a dialogue with the poses which Shelley presented to us which had a depth and a complexity which I have rarely experienced. Matisse claimed that "A work of art which did not begin in emotion, is not art". Approaching this morning's session I did have some thoughts about what I might do. I had been researching images from 'double exposure' and 'multi-exposure' photography of the female nude. Like much of my recent work it involves 'superimposition' and 'transparency', and presents the beholder with a quiz to unravel 'ambiguity' and 'morphed images'. But, what happened today? Presented with the space of a virgin white sheet of A1 cartridge paper, a graphite pencil in each hand, and Shelley settled into her first pose, something took me into an unanticipated dimension. Mark-making commenced as part of the process of my engagement with my art. Yes, I believe I can claim 'My art did begin in emotion". Shelley is a wonderful model, who quite secretly and with a real effort offers amazing poses to challenge us yet with the minimal support offered by the ropes.