Collaborators
Figure models have provided the basis and foundation for the fine arts since the beginnings of art history. Currently, however, many figure modeling communities are comprised predominantly of white, thin, able-bodied, and cis-gendered individuals, leaving artists prepared only to depict figures of this narrow demographic.
Figure On Diversity aims to increase diversity among figure models in arts communities by fostering an arts education in which bodies and figures of diversity are specifically valued, sought after, and highlighted in the curriculum. We intend to empower individuals of diversity to pursue modeling as a means of learning to value all bodies (including their own) as beautiful and worthy of representation in fine arts and media, while providing a safe entry into nude figure modeling for those same individuals for whom the profession may have felt previously inaccessible.
Workshops are open to anyone who feels their bodies (or aspects of their bodies) are underrepresented in fine art and media in any way, including People of Color, and people who are Fat, Queer, Trans, Non-Binary, and/or Disabled. Individuals with mobility and medical devices and service animals are all welcome.
because art should reflect everyone.
Angela DeCarlis | Founder and Director
Izébel Vivant | Project Consultant and Workshop Leader
Morgan Yacoe | BustEd Sculptor
On February 17, 2020, Figure On Diversity was hired to provide programming at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum's Frank Hatch Free Day. The open-drawing event, which featured four clothed models who were alums of the workshop series, was attended by 500 people over five hours. This event was held in conjunction with the opening of the exhibition Boston's Apollo, which brought together drawings and paintings made of the Black and Queer model Thomas E. McKeller by renowned American painter John Singer Sargent.
The video above is a record of Figure On Diversity's drawing session.
