Dave Moran - Whenever You're Ready, Dave

 

As the students filed into the classroom, I tried but failed to stop my hands from shaking. Now, I'm a law professor, so I'm used to seeing students in a classroom. I've given hundreds of lectures to thousands of students. But this wasn't a law class. This was an art class at a community college. I was seated on a stool in the center of the classroom wearing only a white robe. [audience laughter] And in five minutes, I was scheduled to take it off. [audience laughter] How did I get there? Well, as you might guess, it was a midlife crisis I had about a year earlier. [audience laughter] When I suddenly decided I needed to find out if I could learn to do something creative, and I ended up taking a drawing class at a community arts center. 

 

I hadn't drawn anything since junior high. My drawings were terrible, but I gradually got better and better as the class went on. We ended with drawing a model, a live nude model. And drawing a person, as I learned, was very difficult. And so, as the class went on, the instructor, Heather, at one point said, “I'm going to give Helen the model a break. Anybody want to stand up there-- Keep your clothes on. Anybody want to stand up there and take a turn posing?” I raised my hand and I did. And for 15 minutes, I stood up there with my hands on my hips, twisting my torso. My mind went blank for maybe the first time in my life, I now know that I discovered a form of meditation, but it felt great. 

 

And then, afterwards, I looked at the drawings that my fellow classmates had made of me and I liked them. I thought this was wonderful. And so, after the class was over, I emailed Heather, the instructor, and said, “That was wonderful. Are there more opportunities to do that?” She came straight to the point in her email back, “Are you willing to pose nude?” [audience laughter] This led to an interesting conversation with my extremely indulgent wife. [audience laughter] And ultimately, the answer was, “Yes, I'd like to see if I have the guts to do that and I'd like to have that feeling again.” 

 

And so fast forward a few months, I made contact with a community college professor and I had a date, September 14th, 2010 on Wednesday evening. And so, I started preparing for it. So, I did poses in front of the mirror. [audience laughter] I did poses in front of my extremely indulgent wife. [audience laughter] I went online hoping to find reassurance, because I was getting more and more frightened as the date approached. I did not find reassurance online. Instead, I found advice, such as, “If you're a male model, whatever you do, for God's sake, don't think of any sexual thoughts. [audience laughter] And if you do think of any sexual thoughts, immediately start counting backwards from 100 while thinking about penguins.” [audience laughter] And so, that didn't help me. 

 

And so, I showed up on the day, the appointed time, with my bag, with my robe and my slippers. And Kathy, the instructor, showed me to a room where I changed and I came back out and the students filed in and I looked at them. They were varied lot, all ages, from 18 or 19 to people older than me. And Kathy gave some instruction, “So, tonight, we're going to start with some gesture poses, some two-minute action type poses.” And then she looks straight at me and says, “Dave, whenever you're ready.” That's my cue. [audience laughter] And so I stood up, shaking my hand, shaking violently, took the robe off, kicked the slippers off and assumed a pose, I reminiscent, I hope, of Discobulus, the discus thrower from ancient Greece. [audience laughter] 

 

And as I stood there with my imaginary discus, every neuron in my brain screamed, “Grab the robe and run.” [audience laughter] But I managed to fight it off. And after about 30 seconds, the heart rate came down and I started to feel great. And then, I did another pose where I was throwing a ball and I did another pose where I was catching something, I did another pose where I'm reaching for the ceiling and then they had a break. And then, I had a long pose and then a pose where I get to lay down for a while. At the end, Kathy said, “You were wonderful. Can you come back again?” [audience laughter] And I did. 

 

And eight and a half years later, I'm still doing it. [audience laughter] I still model once or twice a month at community colleges and local art centers. And so, I'm so glad that I overcame the fear, because I love the feeling of meditation, of losing myself while staring at a wall, while people are drawing me. And I love the fact that this face, this body, can produce beautiful art. Thank you.