Prometheus Found, or a model story.
By Elizabeth Argall
Biography
There are certain rules to be observed.
Listen carefully, none are written down.
You are not the subject, you are an object.
Do not make eye contact.
The purpose of a nude is to comfort
conform and reassert the forms and measures we call natural
If possible cross or keep you legs together.
You are female, vulnerable and open
in all kinds of nasty ways.
You are the receptacle, remember that.
If you must sit with legs apart
conceal your slit with a well placed hand.
This will save us all from horror and embarrassment.
Do take classical and aesthetically pleasing poses.
So not stick out your tongue.
Do not attempt to twist your body into strange new poses.
It is not our place to be grotesque.
Your poses must appear natural.
Do not challenge the voyeur in all of us.
Do not stare back at
or out through the canvas.
Know that half your body will freeze,
the other half drip with sweat.
This is the nature of heaters.
Know that a minute is not a minute
and neither is half an hour.
Do not converse with students.
Remember, you are an object.
Know that evening classes will most likely feed you.
Remember you have an audience
or forget.
This is your place to dance, play, explore,
inspire a thousand stories.
Worlds carved from
carved in
your flesh.
Your body the primal story
crafted and bound and unbound again and again.
There are no rules.
Just the story.
We are Prometheus
- 28/5/2001