See through

Aside from school, I've never studied art formally. (One one-day clay workshop in the early 90s, and one short course in clay a couple of years ago, were the closest.) I had a few booklets from correspondence courses my aunts had done way before I was born, which had been left behind in my grandparents' home, and I would do the exercises, and I learnt more from those than I did in the art classes in school. (My school art teachers weren't really very good. One teacher I remember with dislike also doubled up as a Marathi teacher, and he was, one, a cruel bastard, would whack boys' knuckles with the edge of a ruler, throw wooden blackboard dusters across the room, that kind of thing, and, two, he favoured kids who copied his style, which was a bit advanced for school kids; he took the joy out of art for me. Later, my parents actually encouraged me to go to art school if I wanted, which is rare for folks of that generation who had no art background themselves, but I decided against it, partly because of what this arsehole had made me feel about studying art, and partly because there was very little career counselling available. I mean, I thought one went to art school only to become an artist or an art teacher. Sigh.)

Anyway.

When I began sculpting again, a few years ago, I found that my informal study of art, from poring over classic paintings — which began when I would download images of these for an ex who was a pretty good artist — and before that, just being in the same workspace as very skilled art directors, had rubbed off on me, and my sensibilities had changed. Often I find myself struggling to create what I can see in my mind but I haven't trained enough to make.

So I went back to informal study, following artists on Instagram, immersing myself in archives, you know.

And, to get the point of this ramble, zooming into pictures of dancers — who have always fascinated me, maybe because I wanted to be one, once upon a when — and athletes, to learn about bodies in motion, looking up anatomy drawings and renderings to understand muscles and bones, that kind of thing. I like creating shapes and figures of women more than I do men, which we'll leave for some future therapist to analyse.

This last bit has had a weird consequence.

Now, when I see a pretty woman, a beautiful face, a lithe body, rather than just saying thank you to the heavens, like any sensible heterosexual man, ever so often I find my mind stripping away their skin to imagine the muscles, the bones, the sinews.

Not always, thank goodness, but often. And even more thanks to providence that in this time I'm only seeing people virtually, or I would probably be arrested for, I don't know, unauthorised anatomy study?

I don't know how to feel about this.