The Spaza Gallery, Troyeville

Thursday, July 15, 2004

Service: * * *
Food: * * * *
Ambience: * * *
Babe Count: * * *

Lionel has sourced a really interesting model for the portrait circle tonight. That's why Linda from Exclusive Books isn't here tonight. She'll be our model next week.

Maria has a fairly heavy jawline, quite jowly, and with really interesting angles to her cheeks. Long hair, with silver showing at the roots.

Maybe it's because I'm thinking about things like Mastery & Submission, but I'm noticing that Maria is being extremely assertive and dominant over Drew's cat. "Come here, cat! I'm talking to you!" she says. "Come here and let me love you to death!!!! Come here or I'll punish you!"

Hmmm.

Maybe there are many many many more people in the world into this than one thinks. I'm debating whether or not to ask Maria if she's into it, but I decide not to. From the way she's treating the cat, I must assume that she gets her kicks from taking the Mastery position. And right now, I'd prefer to be the master of my own destiny, thank you very much.

Maria is here because of a childhood trauma. Some artist was commissioned by her parents to do portraits of her and her two siblings way back when she was a little girl. "He painted my brother and sister," she tells us, "and brought the works round to my parents. They hated the portraits, so they paid him, and told him to forget about the third one -- mine!"

I say, "So did those portraits look like them?"

She thinks for a bit. "No. They were actually horrible."

"So you've been wanting to have your portrait drawn all this time, cos you were jealous of them having their's done??" I ask.

"Well, yes," she says.

"Hmmm," I say. "How can you be sure we'll do a better job than he did?"

"My brother still has his," she says. "And I'll just buy some frames and put all of mine up. Even if they don't look like me."

We put her through the short poses, the three-minute sketches from which she gets to choose one work from each artist.

It seems to have fallen on me to be the timekeeper in this group. Maybe it's cos I'm a natural leader? (I'm NOT overselling myself here, okay, Karen?) So I pose Maria, and keep my eye on my watch. I'm doing ink sketches on paper for these warmups. I'll be working on my palmtop later, during the two long poses.

In the last of the three-minuters, I decided to practice a bit of the Mastery & Submission stuff I've been thinking about. See, I've figured that with Karen, I can instruct her to adopt some sexually compromising poses, and then I'll draw her, and have sex with her, and draw her some more. Sounds ideal. And she won't really be able to object too much, cos I'm the boss, see? So with Maria, I ask her to lean her head back a bit, ostensibly to get better lighting on her eyes. Actually, it's cos I know that her neck muscles are very quickly going to go nuts, and she'll be uncomfortable quite quickly. However, this is of her own making. She told us earlier that she's prepped herself for some serious pain tonight. So I thought I'd call her bluff.

At the end of the pose, I say, "Are you still comfortable?"

She says, through gritted teeth, "How much longer? My neck's a bit sore."

"Just a minute more," I say.

Then we have soup, made by Dean & Duncan. It's superb. Souperb, actually. These are the dudes who chef for the gallery every Sunday. The chef's plate lunch they serve is often splendid, according to reports from my buddies.

Then we get Maria into a nice and comfortable pose, with a pillow behind her neck. See... I'm a kind and merciful lord.

At the end of the sessions, she looks at the various depictions of her, and chooses her bounty. Drew Lindsay has done the best work of all of us. With Lionel's acrylic coming a close second, and my three palmtop drawings getting a lot of favourable attention.

I'm going to have to go home and think about bondage. Maybe do some research on the internet.

"I'm taking this cat home with me," Maria says to Drew.

"It's not my cat," says Drew. "First time I've ever seen it."

"Excellent," says Maria, rubbing her neck. "Come here cat!!!"