While slipping off a robe and posing nude for a classroom of students is intimidating for some people, it is a learning experience for the life-drawing models at Texas Tech.
Life-drawing model Carrie Badillo, a senior philosophy and political science major from McAllen, said modeling taught her to look at the human body in a different way.
"Each body is beautiful, whatever shape and form," she said. "The body is not just a sexual object."
Even though McAllen said she has had fun modeling for life drawing classes for the last two years, she can still remember the first time she had to take her robe off for a class.
"It was a little scary," she said. "But the students are great about it."
In addition to becoming a braver person, McAllen said she also gained an appreciation for art.
"It gives you respect (for the art process)," McAllen said.
McAllen said she would recommend posing nude to students because it is a learning experience and said students also will learn to value art as well as those who do the drawing.
Life drawing model Joel Searsy said this job also makes a person appreciate his or her body.
"It makes you more comfortable with yourself physically," he said. "It makes you want to look good also."
Modeling has not only helped Searsy accomplish his fear of stage fright, but he said it has also helped with his posture.
"I wanted to get into body building," he said, "and (modeling) is what I was told to do."
Searsy said the life drawing classes are in need of models, so this is an easy job for students who need to work.
Andrew Martin, an associate professor of drawing, said the school of art needs life-drawing models.
"The life-drawing models do us a tremendous job," he said. "The more we have, the better."
The models pose nude for the three life drawing classes and one advanced life drawing class, he said. The classes are comprised of students getting degrees in studio art, design communication and visual studies.
"We don't want students drawing the same person over and over," Martin said.
However, he said, the school of art has only five life-drawing models this semester.
Martin said he believes the reason there is a handful of life-drawing models is because students have a misconception about what kind of body is expected.
"We don't look for any ideal body size," he said. "We are looking for all body types."
It does not matter whether a student is short, tall, fat or skinny, he said. Both male and female models are needed.
Martin said he feels the pay for being a life-drawing model, which is $6.82 an hour, is too low.
He said the models pose because they want to, not because of the pay, and the job is for students who like being involved with drawing and art.
"It teaches the models what it is like to be observed with care," Martin said. "They are being drawn with a certain concentration and intensity."
Linda Robertson, a 2001 graduate of Texas Tech, said being a life-drawing model last year was a positive experience.
"I liked that it was a liberating experience," she said. "Very few people I know can say they were the center of a classroom's attention, naked as a jaybird, with a less-than-perfect figure."
Robertson said students with "less-than-perfect" figures should be just as interested in being a life drawing model as those students who do have perfect figures.
"I recommend this for people who have a bad body image or someone whose esteem is a little low," she said. "It is a surge of power when people tell you that you have a wonderful drawing figure, or how much they appreciate getting models of real proportions."
Not only was this a learning experience for Robertson, but she said it also helped her realize each person has different views.
"To some, I was a model who needed to be drawn," she said. "To others, I was a figure to be interpreted."
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