One Hundred and Eighty Degrees

Annie Mesa

I inhaled a mix of bitter charcoal, sharp turpentine, and thick paint as I stood wedged in the corner of one of the Art Students League's tiny elevators. Nearly losing an eye, I dodged a paintbrush protruding from a frizzy-haired lady's tote bag. Men with matching salt and pepper beards gruffly chatted as they waved ink stained hands. Next to me a shirtless Burnt Sienna man with dark hair tied into a long straight braid lifted his chin and languidly peered down beneath his high cheek bones at the rest of us mere mortals. A larger woman texted on her cell phone, the tie of her silk robe threatening to slip undone. Oh please no.

Before her folds of flesh could be revealed, the elevator sounded a faint ding and clumsily opened its creaky metal door. I exhaled.

I told myself that my sister took this class when she was thirteen too. That I would be fine. That no one would laugh at my drawings. That I had the right supplies. That if I had to draw a penis it would be okay. As we unpiled from the elevator I was surrounded by gray floors and lockers and walls smeared with layers of different colored paint. How does that even happen? Do paint-brush- clad people run wild down the hallways at night? “Oh we're here to add to the general ambience,” they would say. I checked my registration ticket to find my classroom number and gingerly opened a wooden door, unsure of what genitalia would be poised and waiting for me on the other side.

Fortunately, I arrived before the model's first pose and found a roomful of frenzied gray-haired people instead. Not a single pair of Converse sneakers or skinny jeans in sight. I folded and unfolded my ticket as I walked towards a woman with cat-eye glasses. She had the air of a TA, and a fistful of registration slips to prove it. She took mine, saying thanks hun and pointing me towards a row of folded chairs leaning against the back wall. “Good luck finding a good spot,” she added as the right side of her mouth frowned.

I struggled to unfold my chair for what felt like a century, silently panicking that I might have to actually engage with another person. The chair finally eased open. Crisis averted. I settled between an older African American man with a wooden box full of wrinkled oil paint tubes, and a short gray-haired woman with a set of fragmented powdery pastels. My hands shook a little as I laid out my embarrassingly new pencils and eraser on the stool next to me. The pristine white cube of an eraser, with its sharp corners, almost sharp enough to prick your thumb, was the newest thing to be seen for miles. The woman took a sip from her disposable coffee cup and smiled at me as she swallowed, “Your first class?” Ha. How'd she know? I nodded.

We created an amphitheater of tangled collapsible wooden chairs and easels around our model. He was petite, bald, and, thankfully, clothed. One of the TAs was getting him situated, trying to place his chair in just the right spot, attempting to please the masses before marking the corners with blue masking tape. No, no to the left, they demanded. Would you lift his arm up a few inches? How about down one? Extend his leg. Now that's way too extended. With a huff, the exasperated TA slapped down her definitive pieces of masking tape over the hundreds of other pieces. Thousands maybe, enough layers of tape to add a few millimeters of height to the platform.

“Would somebody pull down the drapes? The light's going to change in an hour.” A nasally voice called out from the far corner of the room.

“Oh but isn't the sunlight lovely?” reasoned an older woman perched on a stool before a canvas.

“You're only saying that because the sunlight won't affect your view.” “What do you mean it won't affect my view?” As I squirmed in my seat, I was soon overcome with this eerie feeling that I was trapped in an episode of Seinfeld. The one where Jerry visits his elderly parents in Florida and whenever anyone says anything they either A. cannot hear it (“Whaat?”) or B. somehow twist the remark to find it personally offensive (“What do you mean „pass the salt'?! What, my meat loaf's not flavorful enough for you?”).

The pose was about to begin. The masses were moderately pleased. A hush came over the class. “First pose, twenty minutes,” called out the TA as she clicked her stopwatch. Okay, show time. Immediately the dry swift sounds of people's first marks filled the room. I stared ahead at the blank page of my brand new sketchbook as I listened anxiously to hips being aligned, nose widths decided upon, skulls situated and feet placed.

I lifted my brand new 4H pencil. Here goes nothing. I like faces. I'll stick to his face. The model had one of those impeccably clean faces. His eyes were like two deep set golf balls, with no visible lashes and very dark brown irises (a term I learned in a middle school art class, so there). He had three distinctive vertical creases between his eyebrows. Oh everyone's going to have a field day with those, I thought. His lips were set into a stern frown.

I whipped my head up and down between the model and my sketchbook page like a bobblehead on the dashboard of a Jeep driving through bumpy terrain. This was a practice my art teachers in elementary and middle school promoted. Yeah, I was pretty much a pro at the head bob. I thought about the woman next to me seeing my skillful head bobbing, maybe she would think to herself, “Oh she looks up at the model, and down at her page, and then up again so quickly, she must know what she's doing!” Ha. First class my ass.

Beep beep beep. “End of first pose. Five minute break!” called the TA. I put the bobbing to rest and looked down at my page. In the middle of the sheet there were a series of very light pencil marks suggesting a small egg shape. Over and over again. Huh.

“How'd it go?” the woman next to me asked as she leaned over. “Umm...” “That's a good start!” Again with the smile, “Though you might want to think about your composition a little more, and you might want to go a bit larger.”

“Oh much larger,” the man next to me chipped in, he waved his dusty hand over my page, “look at all this great space you have. Use it up!”

I nodded earnestly but grumbled internally. I'd had years of valuable experience copying photographs from magazines for hours in my bedroom. I know what I'm doing, okay? It's not like I've never drawn a face before, okay? And where is the actual teacher anyways?

“Second pose please, twenty minutes.” Furiously I erased my egg. Then drew a slightly larger egg. Then remembered that I should be looking up at the model. I drew a vertical line down my egg and then three horizontal ones to suggest where I might place the egg's eyes, nose, and mouth. A figure that I'd seen on the cover of a „How to Draw Faces' workbook that was usually in craft stores between „How to Draw Horses' and „How to Draw Manatees.' It looked pretty professional to me.

There was so much to do, so many nooks and crannies of this stern man's face to describe. And all the old people around me were already rolling. Creating put together pieces of art. I needed to find a hook. Some crevice to latch onto and begin with. I was floundering. How much more time is left in this pose? I need to have more to show for forty minutes than an egg and three lines. What about the eyebrow creases? Why not. I spent the next fifteen minutes lost in those three eyebrow creases. I caressed them with graphite. Then I got some thumb grease into the shading as I literally caressed them (finger shading was the in technique in most of the middle school drawings I'd seen).

Beep beep beep. “Long twenty minute break. We will resume at 12:00.” Now I had an egg, three lines, and three blobs.

After turning my drawing sideways and upside down, hoping to like it from at least one of its four angles, I gave up and set it down on my chair. When I raised my head, I began to see that this twenty minute break was the time in every class where we all size each other up. Slowly, men and women circulated around the room. Many had their paint stained hands raised to their cheeks, thoughtfully rubbing their jaws as they eyed each other's artwork. The careful lifting and placing of each step seemed like a Renaissance dance I'd seen in a movie, where the characters look meaningfully into each other's eyes as they step around in circles but never say a word. A part of me expected someone to start playing a mandolin. Some students were more obvious with their infatuations than others, nodding their heads earnestly as they eyed a piece they particularly liked. Then creasing their eyebrows and tilting their heads as they saw ones like mine. You just don't get it! I wanted to say. I tried not to look at their reactions as I joined in the dance on the other side of the room.

I was struck by how different all of the pieces were. It's crazy what one hundred and eighty degrees around a room can do to change your view. I first eyed an immaculate oil painting that made me want to quit altogether. To leave before the next pose. Quickly I looked away and saw a pen drawing that put our model's eyes too close together and made his nose way too pear-like. He looked like a Muppet. Okay, I guess I can stick it out for the rest of the class. One man painted in completely flat shapes creating a propaganda poster look, making our model resemble a heartless dictator. A careful pastel rendering gave him some alluring eyelashes I'm pretty sure he didn't have, and brought a bit of rouge into his cheeks, making his gender altogether little ambiguous despite the bald head. Stifling a giggle, I pressed the knuckle of my index finger to my lips as I envisioned our model in a floral print dress. The many different faces of Mr. Eyebrow Crease Bald Guy. And they did all manage to include the eyebrow creases, like an anchor keeping all of our viewpoints somewhat in sync.

The teacher, Sherry Cahmy, finally arrived for the last pose. Her small, interested brown eyes lit up behind her oval wire-framed glasses as she walked around the room. Her long silver ponytail draped over her shoulder. On her petite frame she wore a fitted black turtleneck sweater with short sleeves and faded Levis. She took turns with the students, smiling and leaning over their shoulders as she gave them advice. Some took it well nodding their heads, seeming to agree with her feedback “Oh yeah, I guess his jaw is more angular.” Some tried to defend their choices in proportions. “Yes well, the eyes are two thirds across his face. I measured them, see? See?” his hands shook as he measured the model with his pencil again, praying that he could prove her wrong. Sherry spoke slowly and in a whisper. Killing you softly. I dreaded my turn.

She swiftly unfolded a chair and sat next to me, knowing this would take a while. I stiffened. She gently introduced herself and asked to look at my drawing. “Lovely shading and attention to detail,” she said in a way that made me believe her. She followed with an inevitable „but': “But we may need to go over some of the proportions, do you mind if I use some tracing paper?” I nodded for her to go ahead. She whipped out a piece of translucent paper and started sketching over my egg head. Thoughtfully she laid down her borders. Left Eyeland will meet the Democratic Republic of Right Eye here, and share borders with Noseland there. Her countries lost all resemblance to mine. How could I have seen such a different world?

When she saw the disheartened look on my face, she urged, “These are just suggestions though. I do this to help with general proportions. I do not want to tell you how you should see! I'm not trying to create thirty Sherry Cahmys. Don't ever doubt your own view.” As she left I thanked her. I held onto her proportion cheat sheet. And debated. I finally raised a small white flag and decided to shift the borders of Noseland and expand Cheekiztan but stuck with the borders I originally created for the upper half of his face.

Beep beep beep. “That's a wrap folks!” We all clapped for our model as he stepped down from the platform, thanking him for sitting so impossibly still, and apologizing for the stiffness that will undoubtedly plague his neck for the next few weeks. I peered at the drawings around me, stretched, leaned back, and looked at mine. “Nice eyebrow creases,” a voice from behind me said. I turned to see the model smiling.