Life Drawing with ELSC first launched in 2013 as a natural progression from the age-old practice of hiring professional harlots & hussies as models for art.
Our class is fast paced & involves high-octane aerial pole poses. We incorporate some traditional life drawing with a couple 5, 10 and 15 minute poses. We have an extremely popular “audience participation” exercise. It is a nod to the “lap dance”, encouraging a fun, mischievous atmosphere throughout the class to inspire our community of talented amateur & professional artists.
We de-stigmatise sex work & create our own working conditions through this interdisciplinary class that includes drawing, visual arts, dance, music, comedy, improv, performance & writing.
All our models are strippers or ex-strippers. We welcome newcomers and veterans alike.
If drawing in unusual scenarios is your thing – it doesn’t get much more unusual than this… Join us for another extraordinary and genuinely inspiring life drawing class. The talented dancers of the ELSC are expanding their repertoire; no longer content to save their attributes for Saturday night punters, they are now performing incredible pole routines (with the added twist of holding still) for our more artistic patrons to capture them in motion.
Our doors are open to professional artists, designers, sketchers, illustrators, animators, doodlers, students and first-timers alike.
We have worked out a section of the class called “strip-freeze” – a striptease routine interspersed with one minute poses. As the model performs a strip show on stage, our class-leader calls out “Freeze!” giving the class one minute to capture the pose before the model continues moving. This section is a warm-up exercise for the class, and an intense drawing experience. Once the model is naked, the length of the poses follow a more traditional pattern, with five, ten and fifteen minutes at a time.
Many artists have used sex workers as models & muses for their work, however because sex work throughout history has been framed as inherently degrading, this age-old practice has been a long-ignored fact. The term ‘muse’ is important to this history as it is often used in the context of the male ‘creator’ who is inspired’ by his female muse – in other words, she’s incapable of her own creation or self-realisation – reinforcing women as passive object in relation to the male, active, subject.
The way we navigate the artist/muse issue & questions of exploitation in the sex industry is by asserting sex work as work, & stripping as a legitimate art form. The message isn’t about blanket narratives of exploitation or empowerment, but framing this work in a way that centres harm-reduction, destigmatisation & labour rights.
The desire for sex workers as art models isn’t going away & after centuries of poor representation, our view is that it’s irresponsible to produce this artwork without using it as a platform for de-stigmatisation & the sex worker’s rights movement. Images produced in our classes break away from the strip club’s prevailing male gaze, giving an insight into our dancers’ worlds & celebrating ownership over their own images, reclaiming the agency that is too often stripped of narratives around our bodies.
ELSC welcomes all gender expressions & identities, and artists from all ethnic & cultural backgrounds. We support a diverse audience that reflects our community of strippers & sex workers.
Tickets are offered at 2 tiers - £15 or £20 - this system allows us to keep running the class sustainably, ensuring all hosts & models are adequately paid whilst keeping it accessible for our community! If you have the means to do so, we encourage allies to select the £20 solidarity ticket tier - solidarity pricing helps support ELSC and fund community access!
The class will be led but not tutored. All levels of ability welcome. All paper & drawing materials are available for a £2.50 donation (free materials for students who bring photo ID).
No experience necessary – we can’t wait to make love and make art with you Sunday 19th April!