A Few Good Nudes - Dawn Fallik

Clem Murray/Inquirer Staff Photographer

A Few Good Nudes

Art schools are body surfing, looking for models in all shapes, sizes,colors. Drawing diverse forms makes a better artist.

Lora McKenna needs bodies. She needs big bodies and little bodies and old bodies and Asian and African American bodies. And the University of the Arts model coordinator is fairly shameless about approaching people about their bodies at parties, on the street, and in class.

"I met a woman at a party New Year's Eve - she looked like a character from a Tim Burton film," McKenna said. "She was about 50, with hair down to her waist and maybe she was 100 pounds. She was such a character, she'd be great to draw."

The general belief is that models for figure-drawing classes need to have picture-perfect figures. But across the region, colleges and art schools say they're in desperate need of different bodies to pose, usually naked but not always, for figure-drawing, anatomy, and animation classes...

Dawn Fallik

The Philadelphia Inquirer

February, 3, 2010

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