Transcript of Why? — Episode 18 Nude Art Model Callista Womick
Interview begins at 6:11:
Intro: This is Why?, with your hosts Heidi Hedquist and Luke Polling.
Luke: What’s the hardest part of being a model?
Callista: I’d say…that’s such a hard question. The schedule can be challenging sometimes because it’s dictated a lot by the school year. I work with a lot of students and a lot of professors and work for a lot of universities in the area, so there will sometimes be weeks on end where I am very, very, very busy. For instance, this last week I had three classes one day sandwiched between two classes each day before and after. I actually have not had a full day off in a couple weeks. So, that can get pretty tough. But on the other hand it also means that I get long stretches of vacation time, or flex time, particularly over the summer. I get most of December off. So that’s the trade-off. It’s sort of like being a teacher in that way, but it can get pretty exhausting, especially towards the end of any given semester.
Heidi: So how did you become an art model? And how long have you been doing it?
Callista: I’ve been working full-time for five years and modeling overall for about ten years now. I started out just as a student job because I was work-study — so, I had to work while I was a student to get my aid requirements met — and being an art model on campus was the highest-paying gig around, and I wanted to be very economical with my time since I was a student and had a lot of other things going on, too. So I saw that and I was like, “Well — ”
Luke: [Laughs softly.]
Callista: “ — I don’t know know how comfortable I’ll be with that, but I’ll save a lot of time, in theory — ”
Heidi and Luke: [Laughter.]
Callista: “ — and have to work only, like, a third as many hours ,” which was very appealing, because an hour is worth a lot when you’re an undergraduate.
Heidi: Well, that’s gotta be way better than donating plasma. I mean, that was —
Callista: Oh my gosh! Yes. [Laughs.]
Heidi: Way better. [Laughs.] Way less uncomfortable!
Callista: Yeah, I mean, all I have to do is take my clothes off. [Laughs.]
Heidi: Easy enough. [Laughs.]
Callista: Yeah, yeah. And I think I just stuck with it because I found, once I got over the initial jitters — it was really tough at first, ’cause I grew up in a pretty conservative area, and so the idea of being nude, even though I was, you know, a hippie and very comfortable with nudity, the idea of being nude and just…stared at by people was very uncomfortable for me. But once I got beyond that, it’s so liberating and it’s the best work I’ve ever had.
Luke: How long did it take you to overcome that apprehension and those jitters, like you said?
Callista: It was a slow process. When I worked my first class I was so nervous that I cried. Just a little. But I was that nervous. But walking around afterward and seeing all of the artwork that people had made while they were looking at me, you know, drawings and paintings, what immediately stood out from the very beginning was that people see things so differently. That a group of a dozen people can be looking at the same model at the same time and see a completely different person. Some people drew me as far larger than I was, some drew me as smaller, more feminine, more masculine. And so that drove home for me very early and very quickly that it didn’t matter so much what I looked like because I couldn’t control how people were going to see me. That’s a matter of perception and what people are bringing in terms of their own biases and preconceptions and preferences and insecurities.
Heidi: I mean, that’s pretty incredible, to get there in your psyche that quickly, ’cause I would imagine for some people that would wreak havoc on their self-esteem. They would suddenly see themselves as heavier, or smaller, and whathaveyou, and it could just go crazy. But your perception, or, your interpretation of it is super healthy, I think. Not that I have any —
Callista: Well, those were questions that I had to, you know, answer for myself, too. It’s a lot of reality checking, in part, you know, ’cause I think a lot of us have the tendency to be overly critical of our own bodies. That was certainly something that I struggled with a lot when I was younger and that the modeling helped me with so much, because I did eventually get to this place where I know perception is more about the person who is seeing and perceiving than the object, which is me in this context, being perceived. And, I mean, if anything, it helped me get over a lot of very unhealthy ideas about myself and stop being so critical because I can’t control anything, really. [Laughs.]
Heidi: Do you ever look at a piece and just go, “Oh…oh I really hope this doesn’t see the light of day…” [Laughs.]
Luke: [Laughs.]
Heidi: “…’cause I don’t look like that?” [Laughs.]
Callista: You know, there are definitely pieces I’ve seen where I’ve felt a little insulted, but I always try, when I feel that way, to reflect on, well, why am I taking this so personally? What am I insecure about that that is touching on? ’Cause whenever a piece of art affects me that strongly, you know, it does mean something, there’s already something going on inside of me that’s being touched by that.
Heidi: Right.
Callista: So those are good moments for me, too. I learn a lot about myself by seeing myself through others’ eyes.
Luke: Huh. That’s, like Heidi was saying, that’s such a healthy way to approach all of this.
Callista: Well, I think you’d have to be, otherwise you would really go insane.
Luke: True, yes. You’d be crying all the time.
Callista: All the time.
Heidi: That would be a much different interview. [Laughs.] We’d probably have ended it by now. [Laughs.]
Callista: [Laughs.] “Yeah, we’re just gonna…go…”
Heidi: [Laughs.] “Yeah, but good luck…you might wanna…maybe that plasma thing’s not such a bad idea.” [Laughs.]
Callista: [Laughs.] “It doesn’t hurt that much, promise.”
Heidi: “Right, you’ll be fiiine.” [Laughs.]
Callista: [Laughs.] Oh, gosh.
Heidi: Super cool. So, how long do you have to generally stay in one position? And how still do you really have to be?
Callista: So in terms of length, that varies a lot. In the kind of modeling I do, which is primarily fine arts modeling, there are three different kinds of poses that people will ask for. One is called “gesture poses,” and those are usually quite short. They can be anywhere from, say, five or ten seconds to a few minutes long, and those tend to be the most athletic and extreme poses — something that I couldn’t really hold longer than thirty seconds, although I’ll push myself, of course, to try to make a good piece of art. And after that you can have shorter poses of anywhere from ten to twenty minutes. And then there are also long poses which tend to be multiple sittings of the same pose and you’ll take a break in between. So, a long pose could be for an hour, it could be for a whole class — so, usually three or four hours. Sometimes, especially more established and practiced artists will want to work from the same long pose over multiple sessions, so you could end up with a pose that you’ve held for ten, fifteen, twenty hours in total. A couple weeks ago I worked with some oil painters and over the course of four days held the same pose for twenty-four hours straight, which was grueling but —
Luke: Woah.
Callista: — also so satisfying to be able to look back and say, “Wow! My body is capable of doing that. That’s incredible.”
Luke: Do you have to do, like, prep work for that? Does yoga or some sort of stretching help you, because just thinking about this makes me cramp up.
Callista: Oh yeah. Yeah, being active is absolutely necessary for the health of my body. I do yoga. I also visit the steam room regularly, just to keep myself limber, keep from getting tight. When I was doing that standing pose — that was the 24-hour pose — that was pretty tough on my knees and my hip. There is always the risk of doing damage to one’s joints or nerves when you’re doing a long pose like that, so you also need to be very mindful about what’s going on in your body and realistic about, “Hey, I need to take a break now,” or, “I can’t go back to exactly that same pose, otherwise I may actually hurt myself.” I’ve known a few models who have sustained quite serious injuries by holding a pose longer than was healthy. I’ve done that — not to such extremes — but gotten home at the end of the day and found, “Wow,” you know, “my wrist really still hurts,” or once, you know, I let my arm fall asleep and I thought, “Well, the pose isn’t that much longer, I’ll just tough it out,” and then my fingers were tingling for about a week. That’s just not healthy, and it’s a matter of learning. It’s about learning what your body can do without being injured. So, for the long pose I was recognizing that I’m definitely experiencing some inflammation, so I took some supplements to help with that, astralagus and turmeric, and also sat in warm baths. I took an Epsom salt bath on the second day and just lay there and let my body relax and release the tension. But it’s, like, this ongoing conversation with my body about what I can do with it and how far I can push it but also take good care of it so that we can keep working together.
Heidi: Wow.
Luke: Are most artists ok with you saying, “Hey, can we vary this a little bit?” I mean, students, screw them, I mean, they’re still learning it, but as serious artists, if you’re like, “I can’t keep my elbow up like that,” do they get all huffy, or…?
Callista: It depends on the artists. And that’s also something that you work out in the course of your individual career, is who you work well with. So, for me, I really do try to do my best and hold a pose as carefully and — you asked how long and how still — I try to stay as perfectly still as I possibly can. I’ve had people ask me in the past if I was even breathing during a pose, and it’s actually true: without even really thinking about it, it’s something I realized later I was doing, I breathe far more shallowly when I’m posing, just to not even have that movement. Because I try to imagine myself as a marble statue and to the best of my ability truly not move and when I resume a pose to get back into it as precisely as possible. That said, if there is the risk of injury, most artists are very understanding about that. I’ve only encountered a problem once where I was working with a group that was not understanding and was very strict, and I chose not to work with them again because I have to live inside of this body and, also, it’s a work of art. Flexibility, I think, is important. It’s already interpretative. And it’s supposed to be a back and forth, in my opinion, between a model and an artist to create the work of art. I’m sharing my body and my expertise in that way, but I also request and expect a degree of respect in terms of establishing my own boundaries and limits.
Heidi: Seems pretty fair. So, you’re channeling yourself to be a marble statue, but what else are you thinking about during those times? Are you just focusing on that? Do you go into more of a meditation? Are you reciting your favorite movie lines, going through the grocery list? What’s going through your head during those times?
Callista: All of the above. [Laughs.] Because, you know, in a week I’ll be modeling for twenty or thirty hours, sometimes more, so that’s a lot of time to just be inside my head.
Heidi: Yeah.
Callista: A lot of times I do try to be meditative and not think about anything, just clear my head or, if the thoughts come, observe them but let them go. Other times I’m writing my grocery list or going over an argument I had with someone or thinking about my chores or things I haven’t done. Sometimes I’ll have lyrics stuck in my head, or I’ll play an album, or I’m just so bored. It’s nice when there’s music playing in a classroom. It’s nice when people are talking and I can listen to what they’re talking about, ’cause it’s distracting. It can get dull, but the meditation helps. That helps a lot.
Luke: Do you ever look any of the artists sort of in the eye while you’re posing and stare at them?
Callista and Heidi: [Laugh.]
Luke: And sort of see if they’re looking very confused? I just would imagine myself being like, “What’s so weird to you? What are you…?” like, you know?
Callista: Yeah.
Luke: Is it my hand? Is my hand weird?
Callista: [Laughs.] No, I really try not to. You know, that’s something that’s so funny for me because I’m used to being stared at and scrutinized. It’s impossible to make me uncomfortable in that way anymore.
Luke: Oh Heidi, start.
Callista: But —
Heidi: [Laughs.]
Callista: But I’ve found that a lot of artists get so squirmy when I look at them or when I make eye contact, you know. Being a model on a stand making eye contact with an artist, or even seeming to be looking in their general direction, tends to make them so uncomfortable. You know, they’re staring at me, but the idea that I might be staring back is too much for most people. That’s a question or a complaint that I’ve heard and other models have heard as well, you know, students will say, “Oh the model was staring at me,” and it’s just this big deal. [Laughs.]
Heidi: That’s hilarious.
Callista: I think part of it is because when we’re there, we’re nude and it makes a lot of people uncomfortable, I guess, to be stared at by someone who’s nude. [Laughs.]
Heidi: Which is so the opposite, because most people think it would be uncomfortable to be nude, as we talked about earlier.
Callista: Right, yeah.
Heidi: Have you ever walked in and just looked at them and said, “Draw me like one of your French girls, Jack,” just to throw ’em off? [Laughs.]
Luke: [Laughs.]
Callista: [Laughs.] I’m sure I’ve made that joke. That, or anything. I always try to introduce some jokes or levity, especially when I’m working with freshmen at a university or people who are new—
Heidi: Oh, the poor freshmen.
Callista: Some of them, I mean truly, I think I’m the first nude woman that a lot of students in Boston have seen in real life, which is a really special position to have but also I take that more seriously even, in some ways, than working with my professional artists, because that sets the stage for the way that they’ll regard models for the rest of their artistic careers, that back and forth. You know, I wanna set the precedent that this is a working, communicative relationship where I expect to be treated with respect but I’m also a person and, you know, we can talk and we can joke and it’s ok that I’m naked and we can talk about that and you can look at me and it doesn’t have to be embarrassing.
Luke: So, is there a point in the process, sort of, in — from taking off the robe to assuming your position where you almost go from being a person with these other people in the room, when you almost become this object that they are drawing? Because I would assume an artist, at a certain point, is looking at an angle and at a line and not at a figure, at a person.
Callista: Oh absolutely. When you’re looking at a model from the perspective of an artist, what you’re looking for is, exactly as you said, the line, the shape, the negative space, the tone, the light, you know, all those things that are just this hyper-focused — it’s not a person, it’s not even a leg or an arm or a head or an eye that you’re looking at, it’s a shape, or a color, or a tone, and it’s very reductive in that way. And also, for my part, I feel a shift, too. When I’m on break I love talking with people. We’re artists; we’re talking about what we’re doing. And we’re people; we’re talking about life. But when I switch back to model mode, there’s a little transition period where I get quiet again and I feel like I come back inside myself and then I do become the object. And it’s not that I’m not myself, I’m still a person and I’m inside of myself, but it’s a different way of relating to the world around me and the artists I’m working with.
Luke: I’m assuming you’ve gone to exhibits featuring art that you have posed for, and what is it like to see yourself on the wall? And have you ever been recognized in the gallery, when they’re like, “I know that elbow!”
Heidi: [Laughs.]
Callista: I have seen so much work of myself. I have a bunch in my own home and yeah, sure, you know, in shows. It’s…[exhales]. You know, I think the first time I saw a watercolor of myself at a major gallery it was kinda of mind-blowing, to look and say, “Wow, that is a really beautiful piece of art and that is me and it’s here on the wall and all these people are looking at it and it’s this object that has so much value. People would pay so much for that and I helped create it. Like, I was there for that moment and I know what was around that piece as it was being created, and now here it is,” it’s just this incredibly flattering, humbling, beautiful, mind-blowing experience. And I’ve also, you know, been modeling in Boston for so long now, I’ve worked with almost everyone there is to work with and I hear it a lot — I have a very particular look and I also have very characteristic poses — people tell me quite often, “Oh, I saw a piece of you on the wall there,” or “in a classroom there, and I knew it was you because of the haircut,” or “the tattoo,” or “no one else does a pose like that, I would recognize it anywhere.” That’s also good to hear, too, that, you know, I have my own style and my work is recognized in that way.
Luke: And you said that you have pictures that people have done of you around your house. What’s that like, just being surrounded by…you? Or, someone else’s interpretation of you.
Callista: Yeah, it would be weird if it were just photographs of me.
Luke: [Chuckles.] That’s true.
Heidi: [Laughs.] That would be my house.
Callista: I would feel like a total narcissist if it were that way, you know? [Laughs.] I felt kind of strange at first because they are images of me and I didn’t want to display them for a long time ’cause it did feel kind of strange, but what it really comes down to is every piece I have that is a painting or a drawing or a collage or a sculpture of me was a gift from another artist who spent all of that time with me creating that piece and then shared it with me, and so for me the pieces are more about the relationships and the people who made them. You know, my role in them is cool and it’s cool to be able to see the way I look through so many other people’s eyes, but for me it’s about the community and the people who created the art.
Luke: Where in the house do you have them? Is it, like, in the dining room? Or…?
Callista: Oh, gosh, all over. I’m actually looking across my bedroom right now and I have a whole stack of pieces that haven’t even been framed yet, but there’s a little clay bust of me on top of a bookshelf and there are other framed pieces in my living room and in my dining room and all over the place, you know, just here and there, wherever I have space to hang art. I have a bunch of my own work as well and other pieces that aren’t actually of me. [Laughs.] Just to mix it up a little.
Luke: Sure, yeah, keep ’em guessing.
Heidi: That has to mean, like, the world to the artists, though, if you actually choose to have their piece hanging in your home, their imitation of you.
Callista: It means the world to me to have it, you know, it’s such a special gift to get a piece of art that someone else made. I can’t think of anything more meaningful than someone sharing something that they made, it’s like homemade bread or a scarf that grandma knit.
Luke: Yeah.
Heidi: Right.
Luke: Do you work only with painters or do you work with photographers or sculptors? Do you see a difference between those modes of artist?
Callista: I work with people across pretty much all media. I haven’t done as much photography — that genre…I prefer to stick with the fine arts and photography is so broad. I’ve done some fashion and I’ve been a hair model on a few occasions, which has been fun, but —
Luke: Wait, hair model?
Callista: Yep, so when you’re a hair model, a hair stylist is looking —
Luke: Ah, okay.
Callista: — for someone to, you know, practice a certain cut or color. So I’ve had some really fun experiences and some very wild hairstyles that way. There’s usually a photoshoot afterward.
Luke: Gotcha, okay.
Callista: But I tend to stick to the more traditional media, so painting and sculpture and drawing and collage and that category of stuff.
Heidi: Do you think you’ll do this forever? Or do you have an endgame?
Callista: I do not have an endgame and it’s an open question for me right now because I love this work so much, so so much. I don’t even think of it as work. Sometimes I’ll finish a class and I’ll completely forget to get paid because I forget that this is a job. [Laughs.]
Heidi: [Laughs.]
Callista: It’s just fun for me. It feels right. It’s natural. And it gives me life. Like, I have more energy and more inspiration and joy because I’m doing this right now and I think it would be pretty tough to find something else that has all those positive qualities and still allows me the flexibility of setting my own schedule and pays decently, you know, of course. As anyone would be, you know, I would love to make a little more money and to have a little more financial stability than I do, but I have no complaints. I’m very grateful. I don’t know. And unfortunately it seems to be the case that having done this work also is off-putting to some employers, which, you know, kind of cuts down on the sorts of jobs and the sorts of companies or individuals that I might be able to work with in the future, if I did decide to go a different route.
Heidi: [Exhales.] That’s really ridiculous and annoying but I can see how it happens for sure.
Luke: Do they say it to your face? Or do you leave the room and then…?
Callista: No, you know, it’s usually something more subtle like I’ll apply for a job for which I’m perfectly qualified given my other experience and I just won’t even get an interview. And, you know, my only thought is, “There weren’t that many applicants, and — ,”
Luke: Right.
Callista: “ — and I really was so very qualified. I worked on the application, the cover letter was custom, and,” you know. And I’ll get the questions sometimes in an interview, you know, “Oh, tell me about that,” or just picking up on it from when I chat with someone on the train and the question is, “Oh, what do you do?” and I’ll tell them and they’ll get this look on their face.
Heidi: Not like Luke, who gets so happy and is so excited and texting me and telling me that, “Oh my gosh! She’s got the best job, we have to talk to her!” [Laughs.]
Callista: [Laughs.] No, it’s like they can’t believe I’m even telling them this, like it’s some horrible secret I’m divulging, and they’ll sort of lean in and whisper and say, “Is that…is that naked?” [Laughs.]
Heidi: [Laughs.]
Callista: And I’ll be like…I’m so used to being around people for whom its a non-issue, you know, artists and other creative types, ’cause that’s just what my life has been built to be is I’m around people who are thinking that way. But in the broader culture I think there’s still so much discomfort with nudity and I think a lot of people see the work I do in a very negative light because they associate nudity with sexuality and sexuality is dirty and bad and there are moral questions and, you know, all that baggage. All that nonsense.
Heidi: Yeah, but yet all those people are hoppin’ on planes to go to The Louvre and check out every piece they can.
Callista: Right.
Heidi: I don’t know, if I was on the train I’d totally be like, “Yeah! Stark. Raving. Naked! Not a stitch of clothing for hours! You can see everything!” [Laughs.]
Callista: [Laughs.]
Heidi: That’s why I’m an ass, so.
Luke: Yeah.
Callista: And that’s when they move to another seat.
