(Mis)Adventures in Life Drawing - or Why Our Session Ended in Police Reports

The day dawned overcast and grey, but brightened a bit by the turning October foliage. I headed off to this week's figure drawing session at Arts Umbrella in Country Village where I am the class organizer and monitor.


We had another well-attended session, with a good model.

(gestures and 5-10 minute poses here).

We did a couple of 20 minute poses, where I experimented with conte crayons and pencils. Haven't used those for a long time. It's always interesting - can't get too terribly detailed since our individual boards/easels are not lit, so one is drawing in dim lighting...

We took a longer break for the model to stretch and rest, and walked a few doors down for drinks and cookies. There was a young, very large black man wandering around outside talking to himself outside the cookie/coffee shop. He didn't seem 'all there' and would intermittently get quite loud and somewhat agitated sounding. We steered well clear of him.

We were just settling in for our last hour of drawing when this same young man came pushing his way into our classroom by way of the unused back door. He was told this was a class (as we were all in a dimly lit room, with a naked man up front) and not open to the public. Instead of turning around and leaving, he started shoving his way through the classroom, throwing easels aside and yelling that he 'couldn't see' and 'where was the restroom'? By this time, one of one my figure drawers had run out to the front classroom (full of women who paint together on Friday mornings) and herded them all out of the building before he got that far.

He was now in the (empty) main classroom yelling for a restroom (which we don't have inside the studio - they are outside around the side of the building). Several of my male students were trying to herd him outside, saying that they'd help him find it, but this just seemed to incense him further and he started violently pushing through the tables and easels in the main room while yelling.

Anyhow - this went on as one of the class members dialed 911 and called the police. He continued with more vocal raging and overturned tables and chairs and made threatening gestures towards anyone who approached him until he finally made his way outside the studio (this lasted about 15 minutes total). Ours was not the only location he had entered or attempted to enter, so I suspect the police had a number of calls by then. Several cars with sirens streamed past. He was finally cornered, and being completely non-responsive to instruction (I don't know if he was just mentally imbalanced or completely high on something) had to be tasered and handcuffed before being hauled into a police car.

At this point a number of frightened, shaky ladies came back into the studio. Wanting to recover from the chaos of the last 15 minutes we started setting things back upright and mopping up the floor. I wish I'd had the presence of mind to take pictures first - or really, we should have left it for the police to see. A number of officers came in right after we finished putting the place back together (and I was terribly grateful he *hadn't* decided to act on his decision that the storage area was a urinal as he loudly announced it was).

They came in to get witness statements and to assess the damage done, and to see if our model - who had put on his robe and stood up to his rantings and had consequently been physically threatened - wanted to press charges (he didn't). Really though, nothing much was damaged. One smallish mirror was broken, and drinks were spilled and things were knocked over, but no one was hurt (most everyone ran out as soon as he started getting loud and throwing easels) and there was no other real damage.

The model and I who were there for the entire rant (since this was my class, I was feeling somewhat responsible for the rooms. And the model was only wearing a bathrobe. It was cold out!), and a couple of others who saw most of it stayed to give written statements. A first for me! They were very nice, big, burly, reassuring police officers and we were grateful for their quick response.

Needless to say, no more drawing happened. I hope they can get that poor man some help.

And I picked up enough chocolate on the way home to assuage any lingering nerves. I still have lots of painting to do tonight!

Here's hoping for much less eventful figure drawing sessions from here on out.