Posted in honor of Valentine's Day...
How I Met My Husband - A True Romance Tale:
Many years ago in Philadelphia, I was a fulltime art-model. I posed at places like the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (where Thomas Eakins once scandalized the world by insisting his male models remove their jock-straps) and I posed privately for some of the best-known American Realists of this era. (It's an anonymous claim to fame -- there are paintings and sculptures of me scattered all over, but who the heck knows it's me?) All modesty aside (literally), I was ranked the best female figure and portrait model in the Philadelphia art community. This had nothing to do with looks, you understand. It just meant I was very, very good at holding still for long periods of time. Rob, on the other hand, was a music student who was posing part-time just for some extra cash. That placed him among the "amateur class" of models, whereas I was "pro." Whatever.
We met during a life-painting class at the Academy. These classes usually had two models set up in two different poses at opposite ends of the studio, and you did the same pose every day for two weeks. They had Rob standing, and me semi-reclining on crimson velvet draped over an antique chaise. He looked like Michelangelo's David in his pose, while I looked like something you'd see hanging over a bar in an 1890s saloon. And he spent every blasted day of that two-week pose STARING at me from across the studio! It REALLY got on my nerves. According to the rules of art-school modeling this was unprofessional and rude. I was very offended and barely civil to him. Also, I happened to be married at the time (but it wasn't pleasant, and that story I won't go into).
Anyway, my first husband and I left Philly shortly after that and I spent the next three years in Florida. Then I got smart, got divorced and returned to Philly and modeling. Everyone was happy to see me back -- especially Rob. He was still modeling part-time and we ran into each other again. He was interested. I was not. For weeks he followed me around like a puppy dog, badgering me for a date until I ran out of excuses and went out with him just to get him out of my hair. It didn't work. Nine months later we were married. The way he tells it, he fell in love with me during that first painting class we did, but knew I wasn't available and could do nothing but "admire from afar." Then I disappeared. He claims to have spent that three-year hiatus dreaming of me and sad because he figured he'd never see me again. Then suddenly I walked back into his life, and I was SINGLE. He says that at that point there was NO way I was getting away from him again.... He seems to have been right. We've been married for twenty years now, and I still can't get rid of him. (Grin) [©2007 by Mimi Riser - All rights reserved.] 12:34 AM |
Get updates via email:
Subscribe to this site:
Bookmark this page:
|
January, 2007
My Browser
Del.icio.us
Digg
Reddit
Furl
StumbleUpon