Nudity and an old Czechoslovakian artist named Hashpa

I can’t believe I just did what I just did. What I did was look up “creative gigs” on Craigslist. My au pair job pays me 375 Euros a month. That is diddly squat. I can barely feed myself on that, let alone enjoy the city. I need extra income, something that is easy with flexible hours and I don’t have to speak a lot of French. So it’s prostituting myself or…nude modeling! Ideally, I wanted to be in a highly regarded art school, posing demurely in an academic setting while gay guys in Tom Ford eyewear idly drew me in pen and ink. And make 20 Euros an hour. Safe, neutral, non-sexy setting. But that wasn’t on Craigslist. It was mostly fetish photography, but one stood out as a semi-legitimate ad. I emailed it to myself and reread it for several days, pondering if I should answer it. The ad read:

Painter and photographer seeks female models for personal work and live nude drawing classes. Studio is located in the Marais, near Place des Vosges. Please call Hashpa at 01.40.27.00.95 (sorry, no email).
Compensation is 20-40 euros/hour.


My biggest worry was that I couldn’t email. I would have to call a number. And speak…in French? More like Franglais? Fuck it, I thought after looking at the ad for four days. What do I have to lose? Dignity? Already lost that the first time I tried to order three McDonald’s Happy Meals with the kids. So I call and (thank heavens) reach an answering machine. I say my first line in French: “J’appelle l’annonce dans le craiglist. Um, Sorry, I don’t speak very good French, I am calling about ad in Craigslist. Please call me back at….(oh crap, lost number, search desperately)…this number! Bye!”

I receive a call a couple hours later.

“Hello? This is Hashpa. You call about Craigslist, yes?”

“Yes. Um. Oui.”

He then babbles on in French and I think I hear the word “massage” and get really freaked out thinking it’s some sex shop. I don’t wanna be an imported Thai prostitute like those sad strip mall massage parlors in Houston. But I realize it’s the word “message.” Okay, we’re cool again.

He continues to speak quickly in French though I tell him I really have no idea what he is saying. We finally agree on a time to meet. Tomorrow, at noon, in his studio near Place des Vosges. I hang up and think…shit. If this is legit, I’m gonna have to get nekkid tomorrow. In front of some old dude. In some old dank old studio. This is kind of crazy.

Friday morning arrives and I’m not gonna lie, I’m pretty nervous. But not nervous enough to shower or shave my legs. I mean, I’m not REALLY gonna have to get naked, right? Maybe I can just take off my sweater and he can see I’m not a leper and then, you know, I’ll deal with the naked stuff later when he’s teaching the class. I almost feel it’d be easier to be naked in front of a bunch of students rather than one old lecherous man. Of course I assume he’s lecherous. What kind of an old artist who paints nude women isn’t a womanizer?

I take the metro to Bastille and find the place quite easily. It’s a dark, rotted old building that could quite easily be set in a Dickens novel 100 years ago and you wouldn’t know the difference. I climb the stairs with trepidation and see a door open, leading into a messy room filled with jars, brushes, stacks of books, and paintings everywhere. This must be the place.

Hashpa greets me cheerfully enough. “Ah! Yes! You are afraid of cat?” he gestures to a feral beast circling my legs.

“Um, nope. J’aime les chattes.”
Not true, I hate cats, but they are low on my list of worries today.

He is old, in his early sixties I would guess, with a white beard and a tall, solid figure. He bears a passing resemblance to Hemingway. Great, so I’ll just think of him as the kindly Papa and it’ll make this whole thing much easier. I’ll pretend we’re the Lost Generation and Gertrude Stein is making me tea in the next room.
Hashba gazes me at me intently, “Ah, tu es très jolie. Yes. Come. We talk.”

He grabs a bottle of wine and two glasses and leads me into his studio. Giant windows form one wall and the other three are covered with oil paintings—some good, some bad, some nude, some abstract. It’s the cliché of every European artist’s studio I’ve ever seen. I relax a wee bit, knowing at least he is a real artist and not some creeper with a web cam. I doubt this guy even has email. We sit in two tiny rickety chairs and face each other. He pours the wine, we toast.

“So, um, how many models are you looking for? And what days of the week and for how long? Oh, and how many students do you have?” I babble nervously.

He holds up his hand. “Stop, stop, Non! You. Speak. Slowly. I speak slowly. Then we can understand,yes?”

“Okay. Got it.”

“Okay. We meet. We talk. I have to look at you.”

“Um, you mean, like I have to take my clothes off? Like right now?”

“Oui, oui, c’est normale! It’s the body, I must see if I can paint you.”

Fuck, if I want this gig, I totally have to take my clothes off, don’t I?
“Je suis timide?” I venture cautiously. “Et, je suis Americaine!” (Obviously, just saying I’m American he will realize I am not comfortable with all things sexual and have lots of hang-ups with nudity.

“Bah!” he dismisses with his hand. “I know beaucoup d’Americans and they are crazy. You been with man before, yes? Or are you virgin?”

“Um, yeah, I’ve had a boyfriend, sure.”

“Just one?”

“No…”

He smiles and begins counting on his fingers, “Une, deux, trios, quatre…”

“Okay, sure. You can stop there.”

“Okay, so you can undress, it’s not the first time.”

Shit shit shit, let’s just get this over with. I slowly unwind my scarf and carefully place it on the chair next to me. One article of clothing down, six more to go…there goes the sweater. The tank top. My black leggings. I’m sitting in my underwear now. Phew. I look at him, “This is enough, right?”

“Non! C’est normale, I need to see everything.”

Okay, I’ve done topless beaches. Kind of. For like two seconds in the water once in Miami. It’s just nudity. He’s an artist. Sees it all the time. I take my bra off. Ta da! Pretty much naked now!

“C’est bien, c’est bien. You are…Renoir! Yes, I show you.” He pulls out a book from his stack and thumbs through it, finally stopping at a page of Renoir’s nudes. He shows me. I have to admit, I bear a passing resemblance to some of the women.

“Eh…Klimt? Tu sais?” He hands me another book. This one is mostly female nudes, pen and ink. I recognize some of them. I’m cool with it until I notice most of them are, uh, touching themselves. Spread eagle. I find a nice, tasteful, sitting down with all hands in appropriate places and point: “I like THIS ONE the best.”

“Ah, c’est bien. Eh…” he rifles through the book and stops at one. “This is self-portrait.”

Oh, very nice. Oh, it appears Klimt and his wife/girlfriend are both naked and he is holding…himself. Ah, yes. Rather a large one at that. Thought it was his hand at first.

“Well, that is interesting…”
Hasbah has one more to show me. It’s another drawing of a nude, the girl looks quite young. “This…sister!” he announces.

“Oh, he drew his sister nude? Ah, well…must have been awkward, don’t you think?”
“Yes, and then they had the sex!”

“Oh, he had sex with his sister? Hmmm, yeah, I’m not really sure I agree with that—incest, you know, not my cup of tea.”

He nods happily. We put the books away and he gestures at my underwear: “All of it.”
Uhhh. This means I have to sit bare-assed on a cold chair. But I’ve come this far…fuck it! I yank them off, place them on the rest of my clothes and realize…well, I’m naked. This is probably the weirdest moment of my life so far, but I’m doing it.
We continue chatting in broken English/French and for a couple minutes I almost forget I’m naked. Hey, this is relaxing! Just hanging out, being nude, talking about art. He does a pretty good job of maintaining eye contact, I have to say. To make me feel better he shows me naked pictures of his wife. She is Asian, sitting in a pool, and looks about twenty. Huh.

He asks about a boyfriend and I tell him about Colin in Chicago. Of this he strongly disapproves.

“How old is boy?”
“He’s 31.”

“Ah! 31. He needs the sex every day. Every day.”

“Well, yeah, but he can’t so, you know, we just have to wait until we see each other again…”

“No! Man cannot wait. Not healthy. Is healthy to have sex every day. You, you may wait. But he needs it.”

“Well, we don’t have a choice---“

“How long you in France for?”

I say six months, which isn’t quite true, but close enough.

“Too long! Monogamy…ce n’est pas normale. I…four girlfriends. Five wives. People in America…how you say, Mormon? They have polygamy—lots of wives! It’s good, no?”
“Uh, sure, but it’s not really fair to the wife…”

“Bah!” he waves his hand. “No. Not fair. But that’s life. You in France now, you young, must experience…the French!”

On this we must agree to disagree.

But back to the reason I’m there, still sitting nude, sipping on my wine. He tells me his wife also makes art, especially using photographs. “If you are comfortable, she take your photograph. We see. I only use old Russian cameras. No automatic. But model must choose own pose.”

Hmmm…photography. A bit more permanent and realistic than a blurry Impressionist nude painting of me. But--we’ll see. I’ve always wanted nude photographs of me, provided they’re tastefully done and make me look phenomenal. I try to pin down a time for me to come every week. He tells me he won’t need me for his weekly classes, as he wants to “keep me for himself.” (All the better to rape me!, I think.) Which I guess is flattering except for the fact that I would like to work as much as possible because in the end…muse or not, I need beaucoup d’argent. But artists don’t like to talk about money, do they?

He asks for me to come on Sunday, but I’m not sure what my day will hold (supposed to be having brunch with Mike, going to an exhibition of Karl Lagerfeld photographs, open house at American Library…) so I say next time. He says he will call me. I eagerly put my clothes back on, fight off his feral cat, we shake hands, and I let myself out. I’m walking in the busy streets of Le Marais, slightly buzzed on wine, laughing to myself. Well, I finally conquered one of my biggest fears and fantasies. And I don’t mean sexual fantasy, but rather doing something I’d always wondered about but never actually done. Posing nude for an artist. It took a lot of guts and a lot of awkwardness…but I did it. My first Parisian success?