STANWOOD — During her nearly 40 years as a flight attendant, Mary Murphy visited all the world’s great art museums. On Friday, the 76-year-old Langley artist traveled to Stanwood to spend 24 hours drawing nudes.
A life-drawing marathon to benefit the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life was staged from noon Friday to noon Saturday at Gallery by the Bay. At times more than 35 artists crammed easels, benches and stools into the small storefront gallery. In the middle of the night, Murphy and seven others continued to draw, using pencil, charcoal and pastels to depict their nude male and female models.
The chance to draw live models was more than she could pass up, Murphy said on Friday.
“I’m originally from San Francisco, where you can find a life drawing class on every street corner,” she said. “Not up here in this part of the country.”
Across the gallery from Murphy on Friday afternoon, three Stanwood High School girls sketched like mad. Most college art schools require prospective students to have nudes in their portfolios. Kalie Presteen, Jessica Butler and Morgan Mulhall did their best to produce drawings quickly and confidently.
For Kalie, a 17-year-old junior, it was her first time to work with nude models. That’s not something she was likely to get at school, not even in the girls’ advanced placement art class.
A smudge of charcoal on her face, Kalie smiled as she talked about the human body as an art form.
“It’s fun to work with these great artists and great models right here in Stanwood,” she said.
Jessica, who had done some figure drawing before, scoffed at the idea that drawing nudes might be at all embarrassing.
“There’s a little adolescent immaturity when you first go into it,” she said. “After you get started, you just don’t pay attention to their nakedness.”
Jessica said she was happy to participate in the life-drawing marathon in part because her mother is a cancer survivor.
“It’s great to be able to use my talent to help out the Relay for Life,” she said.
Several years ago glass artist Patti Pontikis and gallery owner Gayle Picken added the fundraising element to the gallery’s annual Unclad art show.
Pontikis, a cancer survivor, said she hoped to beat last year’s donation of $4,000 to the American Cancer Society.
On Saturday afternoon, nearly 40 works of art had been donated by the marathon artists. The drawings were auctioned Saturday evening at a wine-tasting event at the Floyd Norgaard Cultural Center, where the Unclad art show is displayed until 5 p.m. today. Organizers won’t know until later this week how much money was raised, but Pontikis is hopeful it will surpass the goal.
“It was a fabulous event,” Pontikis said.
Everett landscape artist Janet Hamilton agreed.
Happy to get the chance to practice figure drawing, Hamilton donated one of her portraits to the auction.
Early in the marathon, the artists worked quietly and intently as bluegrass and jazz played in the background. A painter’s dropcloth blocked the windows to potential unwanted gazes from the sidewalk as models changed positions and the artists dug out fresh paper.
Murphy settled in for the long haul.
“Around midnight I will be so tired, I probably will end up with something really good,” she said.
Gale Fiege: 425-339-3427; gfiege@heraldnet.com.
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