Fliers seeking models for community figure drawing sessions set off a chain of events this fall that culminated in an international media storm and a 16-foot blue heron sculpture wearing a fig leaf.

The University of Oregon has offered free life drawing sessions to the community of Eugene, Oregon for 20 years. Early this September, fliers seeking models appeared around Eugene without the knowledge or permission of the university staffers who facilitate the drawing sessions. The (Eugene, Oregon) Register-Guard reported that local artist and volunteer coordinator for the figure drawing group, Will Mitchell, took responsibility for posting the fliers, unaware that they would be an issue.

But after the fliers appeared, the university began receiving up to 20 calls a day inquiring about the sessions, said Brook Muller, acting dean for the School of Architecture and Applied Arts. He added that some callers made “off-color” inquiries about the models’ appearance, and that the staff grew “quite concerned” about who might start showing up to the sessions.

The staff’s alarm grew as calls kept coming throughout September, especially since the university has not been able to have a staff member at the figure drawing sessions in recent years due to budget cuts, said Carla Bengtson, head of the art department.

The staff, which already scheduled models and set up their contracts, couldn’t deal with the additional volume of calls, Muller said, considering that the life drawing sessions generate no income. So the university canceled the sessions, due to concerns about the “off-color” calls and budget restrictions.

The decision would prove less than popular.

Muller admitted that the reaction from the community has been “quite negative.” “The community is upset about it,” he said.

The university has received emails citing inflammatory quotes, supposedly from the administration, that Muller claims “are not coming from us.” He stressed that the university’s only motivation “is to ensure a safe environment within the confines of our financial model.”

One of the most recent forms of protest to the decision came on Tuesday, when Jed Turner, a community artist and graduate of UO’s art school, applied a large knitted “fig leaf” to his enormous statue of a blue heron, which was partially commissioned by UO and is situated in the university district. He wanted to protest what he sees as the university’s lack of visibility and consideration for the artists, according to The Register-Guard.

Some of the comments below The Register-Guard’s stories also make it seem like an understatement to call the community’s reaction “quite negative.”

“Maybe to prevent rape and ‘wrong’ thoughts the university should require all females to wear burkas,” a reader with the username Hans-Dieter Honscheid wrote under The Register-Guard’s initial story, following up his comment with a frowning emoticon.

“I’m astounded that the most threatening example UO Arts Admin could come up with was a caller asking ‘What do the models look like?’ What if that person was genuinely inquiring whether there was body-type requirement to model for the artists??” wrote Turner on the Register-Guard’s follow-up story. “The UO Arts Administrations (sic) unwillingness to explain, discuss or reconsider this decision is dumbfounding. I would send back my degree if I could find it.”

Bengtson, the head of UO’s art department, said the university’s reasons for canceling the sessions have been misrepresented in the media coverage of this event, which include stories in publications as far-flung as the United Kingdom’s Daily Mail.

The Register-Guard’s first story quotes Mitchell as saying that he had a meeting with Bengtson in which she expressed concerns about the models being “exhibitionist” or the artists behaving inappropriately. But Bengtson said she never expressed those opinions.

“We did not cancel the courses out of any concerns about prudishness, any feeling of the need to censor what was happening,” she said. “We simply were concerned about our ability to create a safe environment for participants moving forward.”

Bengtson added that she doesn’t know how the cancellation of figure drawing sessions attended by a few dozen people became the focus of the international media. “The whole thing has been blown out of proportion,” she said.

Published on October 2, 2014 at 12:01 am

Contact Maggie: mmcregan@syr.edu