THE DRAWING ROOM: ARTISTS PRACTICE BASICS IN FIGURE DRAWING WORKSHOP

Jackie Morgan peers over her easel at the model at the Arts Council of Southeast Missouri's Wednesday Night Drawing Group, Wednesday, June 14, 2000.

Leslie Stucker, the assistant director of the arts council, softens the lines on her drawing of Nathan Elder, a senior at SEMO studying sculpture and a regular model at the council's Wednesday Night Drawing Group.

'When you draw it you see it and discover it and understand it.'

--Art teacher Carol Horst

About 6:30 every Wednesday evening, Craig Thomas begins hanging sheets in the windows at the Arts Council of Southeast Missouri. Otherwise someone peering in might see a nude man or nude woman standing or sitting like a statue in the middle of the room.

Not all the people who model for the weekly figure drawing workshop are nude. Recent models have worn baseball uniforms or dresses.

"It's hard to find nude models in Cape Girardeau," says Thomas, who organizes the sessions and is known as a muralist and for sidewalk chalk drawings. "It's hard to find people willing to expose themselves."

Last week's model, Southeast art student Nathan Elder, wore a toga. Nine artists seated on encircled him as he first stood briefly in classical "gestures" suggested by the group. In the first he pretended to be throwing a discus, in the second preparing for a sprint. Then Elder settled into a "long pose" lasting 20 minutes.

An opera on radio station KRCU provided accompaniment.

Drawing figures is one of the essential and most challenging abilities for an artist to develop and maintain, Thomas says. "People know what the human body looks like. If you screw it up they know it."

More than that, figure drawing helps develop an artist's sensibility, says Carol Horst, an art teacher in the Jackson schools.

"It keeps you being able to really see, not just look," she says. "When you draw it, you see it and discover it and understand it."

Horst was one of the founding members of the group. She has bachelor's and master's degrees in art from Southeast.

Sheryl England, a recovery nurse who lives in Jackson, used to be a commercial artist and joined the group because she wants to bring art back into her life through drawing.

"It's very healing, very restful," she says. "You find out things about yourself you don't even know. You see something you didn't know was in you."

The 25-year-old Elder is a ceramic artist. In a previous modeling session, he dressed as a "'70s guy."

"(Modeling) gives me a different perspective on art," he says. "I'm looking at the artist interpreting me."

His primary job is to concentrate on maintaining the pose and keeping his muscles relaxed.

"It's a change of pace and the extra money isn't bad," he says.

The artists chip in $5 each to help pay the model. Models are paid $15 for the 2 1/2-hour session or $30 for modeling nude.

Elder doesn't feel comfortable posing nude because he knows one of the artists in the group. "I would feel weird," he said.

The group that night also included art teachers, a therapist, a librarian, a retired physician, a retired nurse, a commercial artist, a retired school teacher and a homemaker. Some have had no formal art training, others have been doing this a long time. Each seemed to have a different reason for being there.

"It's good for when you're in a slump," said Leslie Stucker, one of the artists and assistant director of the Arts Council. "You can always go back to drawing to work on technique."

Caroline Brown, a Jackson therapist, comes to the group to unwind. "I do verbal counseling all day and I needed some way to feel the creative juices," she said. "Art is my love."

Brown uses art in her therapy, especially when counseling children.

Paula Gresham-Bequette, assistant director of the Riverside Library in Jackson, says drawing with the group energizes her.

"Just when you think you're too exhausted from work to go, I make myself and I'm never sorry," she says.

She says all levels of artists are accepted by the group. "Nobody is an artistic snob."

Dr. Grant Lund and some Southeast students began the group in 1979 in an extension class taught in Sikeston. Eventually the group moved to the Southeast campus. This year, the figure drawing group was moved to the Arts Council from its longtime home at Southeast because university officials were concerned about liability and because Thomas does not teach at the university, he said. Thomas has been involved in the group since 1981.

One of the teachers said figure drawing for an artist might be comparable to playing scales for a musician.

"They say you should practice every day," Thomas said.

A show of the artists' drawings is planned in one of the Arts Council galleries in December.