Andrew Bracey, Manchester UK

The day started innocently enough. It was roughly the 3rd life class on the foundation course at Plymouth College of art and design and i was beginning to get the sense of what drawing the figure was. This rainy October was when I realised that life drawing was so much more than the act of drawing. the class entered at various degrees of tardiness to find the room as you would expect; the easels set up around a mattress waiting for the life model to appear. Paul, our tutor was present, looking busy. We fell into the usual chatter that precedes the start of day on a foundation course, swapping gossip and last nights tv. However we began slowly to dry up in our chatter and started to increasingly look at out watches. Time was pressing on, most of us had already been here for 15 minutes and there was still no life model. We began one by one to fall silent and start to wonder what Paul was doing, he certainly was not talking to us as he usually did, some had tried and got a silent response.

Finally when there was absolute silence in the room, Paul proceeded to tell us what he was doing. We had all noted he was stirring something in a jug, however we did not expect him to start tipping the substance all over the floor whilst telling us that he was spunking all over the life room, spreading his seed, as it were. There was horrified looks around, by both male and female students. Joan, our other fine art tutor looked on approvingly at our revolted faces, each one of us thinking what the hell had we signed up for and could he do this? About this time the (female) life model entered and stepped over Paul's sperm, which was beginning to seep towards people along the floor boards, and set up a pose. Paul then very matter of fact told us that this would be a 3 hour life model pose and to get drawing.

I was not the only one that started to draw with not quite my full attention on the paper and the model. After one hour i had to move for fear of the spunk of Paul crossing and spreading over my easel patch. For 3 hours there was silence, with Paul and Joan looking smugly on as we struggle through our drawing session with real unease.

Of course Paul could not really do this and after 3 hours told us that we had in fact had a mixture of salt and a little water infesting the room, not his seed, but the thought of it. Of course all our drawings were slightly different in their mood that day. This was the start of our life drawing session which also variously featured the model lying in sand next to a real skeleton, an ex army man holding a real life broadsword for a morning (it was bloody heavy as all males found out in the break) and a life day which consisted of Wagner’s Ring cycle blasted to us in the morning and a Barry White song on repeat for a whole afternoon. I look back on my life classes with such fondness, who says they are a stuffy institution?

Andrew Bracey, is an artist based in Manchester and senior lecturer in Fine Art at the University of Lincoln

www.andrewbracey.com