A long time ago, way back in 1993, I use to hang out at a coffee shop called the Passion Coffeehouse. I ended up hanging out there because I was volunteering for the Back Alley Theatre with the hopes that I'd be a Rookie Improv Performer someday. After several months there, volunteering and taking workshops, I also got to be friendly with the waiting staff, especially one beautiful woman who said she was an artist and wanted me to pose for her. I was immediately flattered and said yes. We had a photo shoot first, so she'd select which photo she wanted then would paint a beautifully gigantic portrait of me, and she gave me a snap-shot of it too. After posing for another one of hers, it became part of a performance piece, and I'd met this other brother who did art modelling. "Have you ever considered doing this for a living?" he asked. It seemed like a cool idea, so he gave me some names and phone numbers to call, saying that he was moving back to Toronto. Even after phoning these people, I got no immediate response. It took a few years, but I only modelled a couple of time a year. Then, after leaving my name and number to The Basic Inquiry Art Studio and not hearing from them for months, I got a phone call to replace the model that didn't show. She wasn't being very clear at first and the conversation got frustrating, so she was about to hang up when I stopped her and asked what she wanted. I got down there, modelled, and became one of their favorites. Now and then, because other artists and teachers remembered me, I'd get phone calls from community centres, art schools and studios for me pose for them, so I was modelling several times a month. When I started, it was 10 bucks an hour, but ranging from 2-4 hours, usually 3, so I'd walk away with 20-40 bucks to spend on lunch or a CD. To date, it may still be 17.50-20 bucks an hour, but cash was always good. Some of the art courses would have you give them a void cheque so that they'd directly deposit it for you, which sucked when you wanted cash on hand. During those lean times, and there were many, you can't afford to wait for your cheque in 2 weeks.

The best thing about the job was that people were very respectful of your personal space. Nobody would try to handle you or act gross towards you. The students especially were warned, so as a result were very shy around me, barely talking to me during breaks. The community centres had retired women, a few men and they were so polite and kind as we talked over tea and snacks. The only down side was that they were the farthest to bus it to, so there'd be morning classes, I'd have to get there by 9am, catching a bus around 6 or 7am.

The saddest part was knowing 2 people who'd died: Lynn Paley 25, who fell to her death off a cliff, and Frank Munnik, 51, who had a heart attack on the bus on his way to a session.

There was one group that was all the way out in White Rock, B.C., who hired me every second month on a tuesday; they were all such good artists, and during the sessions, they'd chat away like they were having tea, talking about current events, gossiping about other artists, and I felt like a fly-on-the-wall rather than the centre of attention.

It wasn't hard to quit modelling once I decided to move away from Vancouver, but I had to phone so many people about my leaving. One French fellow seemed upset that I was going and wanted to know why. He had me model at an animation studio all day, so I'd get paid 120 bucks, in two weeks though.