What do British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, the Italian renaissance genius Michelangelo and the South Delta Artists Guild have in common?
One of the allied military leaders in the Second World War, Montgomery was famously recognized for his care of the soldiers he commanded, the way he boosted morale and because he recognized the importance of wearing all his medals. This was honest reality, and the English expression “the full monty” came to mean just that: what you see is what you get.
That term certainly applies to Michelangelo’s 14-foot marble statue of the naked shepherd boy David standing tensed ready to fight the giant Goliath. It was commissioned in 1501 for Florence’s cathedral when Michelangelo was just 26, and by 1504 he had completed what is generally acclaimed as one of the world’s finest depictions of the human body, now in Florence’s Galleria dell’ Academia.
The guild comes into the act because one of its longest-running and most popular programs is the Monday morning life-drawing sessions held in the Gallery 1710 studio, when professional models, male and female, help artists interpret the human form through a series of short and long poses, draped and undraped.
As Jean Thompson, current co-ordinator of the program, suggests, these sessions in effect offer the full monty to artists exploring figurative art.
“No instruction is given and artists use whatever medium they choose to express what they see,” she explains. “They learn by observation, eye-and-hand coordination, and interaction with each other during breaks.”
A similar freedom of expression, born of a response to unemployed desperation in the 1990s in Britain, led to a sensitive and very funny 1997 film, The Full Monty, which received worldwide applause.
So the life-drawing artists are presenting their third annual show, The Full Monty, at Gallery 1710 beginning Monday, June 22 and running through Sunday June 28. It runs daily from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
A reception to which all are welcome is set for Wednesday, June 24 from 7 to 9 p.m.
On show and for sale on Gallery 1710 walls is a variety of figurative work and also for sale is original matted but unframed art stacked in the lobby bin. The studio itself is also open to visitors to see displayed what
Thompson calls “absolutely raw drawings straight off the pad which are unframed, un-matted and unprotected to show how we go about trying to record the human figure.”
Gallery 1710 is in the Kiwanis Longhouse, 1710-56th St., Tsawwassen (adjacent to the South Delta Recreation Centre). For more information, visit www.southdeltaartistsguild.ca or call 604-943-3313.
