Live Nude Girl: My Life as an Object

by Kathleen Rooney

Live Nude Girl: My Life as an Object is a lively meditation on the profession of art modeling as it has been practiced in history and as it is practiced today. Kathleen Rooney draws on her own experiences working as an artists’ model, as well as the famous, notorious, and mysterious artists and models through the ages.

Through a combination of personal perspective, historical anecdote, and witty prose, Live Nude Girl reveals that both the appeal of posing nude for artists and the appeal of drawing the naked figure lie in our deeply human responses to beauty, sex, love, and death.

Genres: Nonfiction, Art, Memoir, History, Art History, Biography, Essays

183 pages, Hardcover

First published February 26, 2009

About the author

Kathleen Rooney is a founding editor of Rose Metal Press, a publisher of literary work in hybrid genres, and a founding member of Poems While You Wait, a team of poets and their typewriters who compose commissioned poetry on demand.

She is the author, most recently, of the novels Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk and Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey. Her latest collection Where Are the Snows, winner of the XJ Kennedy Prize, was published by Texas Review Press in September 2022. Her novel from Dust to Stardust, was published by Lake Union Press in Fall of 2023, and her debut picture book--co-written with her sister Beth Rooney and illustrated by Betsy Bowen--was published by University of Minnesota Press in Fall of 2025.

Her fifth novel, Man Overboard!, is coming out with Gallery Books in July of 2026.

Reviews

[Elyse Walters · Rating 5 out of 5]

Audiobook….read by Eva Hamilton
…..8 hours and 9 minutes

I was interested in this book because of the author: *Kathleen Rooney*.

When I saw that “Live Nude Girl: My Life as an Object”, was available on Audible,
I was excited……
remembering how much I enjoyed two other books by Kathleen Rooney—
“Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey” (loved it)
and
“Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk”…..(not only loved it - it’s one of my favorites)….

Kathleen Rooney is a glorious skillful writer. Anyone who has read her work, is shaking their head saying, “I know I know”.

The voice narrator, Eve Hamilton, wasn’t my favorite— she had a ‘singing-song’ pitch ——but I got use to it …..and what stood out was the beautiful written prose. So…in the end, I credit Eve, too.

One reviewer wrote of ‘Live Nude Girls’….
“This book is good enough to be taken playfully, rather than seriously” …..
However…..
…..the reviewer went on to say: “If you actually believe the lie that reveals the truth, rather than merely living the lie, you’ll understand what I mean by that” —
AMEN ….to reviewer *Dwight L. Cramer.

I actually knew a few women that were live nude models at our local college —- I also knew the photographer who took those photos. Stanley asked me if I was interested in being a model in his Art college art class. I politely said no.

Today, Paul and are acquaintances with a two local photographers who - from time to time - rent our backyard to photograph their nude models. We don’t watch - honest.
We’re get paid $300 cash for the two hours they are here. It’s not often — but a few times a year.
All we ask is that they are careful and respectful of our plants.

Kathleen Rooney is an American writer, publisher, editor, and educator.
In 2006, Random House named her Best New Voices which included her essay ‘Live Nude Girl’.
I’d vote for Kathleen too!!!
Her writing is so outstanding I’m surprise she’s not a bigger household name.

‘Live Nude Girl’ is tasteful, enjoyable, informative, insightful, with historical antidotes into the ancient practice of nude modeling.
Kathleen also shares about her senior year in college when she responded to an ad “Be Part of Art”.
It was surprisingly fascinating the varied themes addressed. There were many: the difference between being naked and being nude….
art vs. eroticism, posing for women as opposed to posing for men, the art of sitting still without getting cramps, the easy income, etc.

Kathleen articulates brilliantly…..scholarly….and irresistibly.
My respect for her continues grow.
I would have loved to take a college course with her.

It was easy to imagine the vulnerable and powerful feelings she felt as a young college student, part time nude artist.

I’m thrilled I spent time with this book —
Very Enjoyable!

My question is now when is the next book coming out?
Historical fiction? Contemporary?
I don’t think there is a genre she couldn’t write.

[Paul Bryant · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kathleen Rooney wrote one of my very favourite recent nonfiction books which shows she is a witty, careful thinker about modern culture; and a slightly annoying collection of essays with the great title For You, For You I am Trilling These Songs in which it becomes clear that Kathleen Rooney is also a babe, and then also, she wrote this memoir which is all about how she formerly earned some of her money being nude. Not naked! No. Being naked is completely different. ("there's a power that comes with nudity, a naturalness…Actual nakedness? I shy away"). This, then, is the intellectual-arty version of Diablo Cody's great memoir Candy Girl. Both books are fascinating because of the sheer messiness and complexity of their subject matter. We know that girls of slender means sell their bodies in a dazzling multiplicity of ways because they have to; Diablo Cody and Kathleen Rooney are two educated brainy middle-class young American women who did it because they wanted to - this bothers us considerably, in a similar way that the success of 50 Shades of Grey bothers us, and it bothered them too, as both wrote books trying to figure out why they did it and maybe, in KR's case, still does.

Kathleen gets the issue of her own narcissism into the frame from the title of the introduction which is called "Look at Me". And later on she denounces herself, wryly – first, I pose nude for strangers; then, if that's not enough, I write a whole book about posing nude for strangers. Throughout the book, her feelings about her body and her feelings about others' feelings are never very far away.

My skinny is what I have always been. My skinny is how I always want to be. My skinny is me. But sometimes I distrust it. My breasts are too small; my nipples too pink. My butt is too big for my frame, curved and fleshy. My ribs are like a xylophone, and the knobs of my spine stick up like ponderous cairns in the landscape of my back. My hips are jutty wings.

I accuse KR in her essays of back-door bragging (she quotes her students as saying stuff like "Oh you're so young and pretty it's hard to keep remembering you're our visiting professor of English") and she's at it quite frequently throughout this book. For instance :

Jeremy never filled our sessions with flattery or patter, with the coaxing little "You're beautifuls" or "You look so lovelys" or "You're so thins" that other artists sometimes did

Or

No matter how many times people compliment me on the way I look, I still try to consider my imagination my best feature.

Or


I slipped off the flannel as he slipped a CD into the changer…"Wonderful," he breathed, looking at me and adjusting the volume.

Well, that makes it sound like Jackie Collins, but that would be very unfair – this book references Edmund Burke, Naomi Wolf, Roland Barthes, Kenneth Clark, Barcan, Barthelme, John Berger, Saint Augustine, and on and on. But I understand her next book will be called How to Let Gifted and Intellectual Men Down gently When they Fall In Love with You. And in spite of all of this slightly monstrous ego, it's almost impossible not to like her.


There's a thick patina of sex grunging up the subject of artists' models – so many of them were prostitutes or became prostitutes or became the artist's mistresses. She launches herself into extraordinarily candid waters here, and heaven knows what her fiance/husband made of it all, as "well-balanced" as she describes him. Okay, KR does all this nude art modelling for groups. But she also does nude art modelling for single male clients. And then, she also does nude photography modelling for single male clients – we get to this part in chapter 4, where art morphs into porn. It's all described at great length. She goes through many emotions, thoughts, feelings about these different situations and sometimes arrives at a confession that yes, it was an erotically charged situation and yes, she didn't mind that. There's one (art) client she has called Jeremy who gets the star treatment – quite a number of pages are devoted to her extended relationship with him – all quite platonic, but involving her describing him as aged 30 and handsome (his hair is dark brown, cropped, and looks as though it would be curly if he let it grow longer. His face is smart, serious, with lips that press resolutely together as he concentrates) and there he is gazing raptly at her naked body for hours at a time over many months.

These close, contemporary artist-model relationships are not defined by sex or by romance. Yet they're intimate – intense and exciting in a way that a normal friendship could never be

If you're in the art world and want to look through a model's eyes for a change, you need to read this book. It's full of curious observations and different vantage points, sometimes a little bit titillating, and sometimes a whole lot sobering too, such as the observation that she had had plenty of "clothed jobs" (her words) and in more than one of them, had been groped and fondled by male colleagues – which never happened once when she took all her clothes off.

[Jimmy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This wasn’t the book I wanted to read by Kathleen Rooney. I wanted to read her other one, a new novel with a beautiful cover featuring a walking protagonist, which is one of my things (I have a whole shelf here on walking). But this was the one the library had, so I picked it up. I figured I’m slightly intrigued by the topic—I went through a phase of drawing from live models for about a year and had always been curious about the other end of that experience. And why not see if I liked the author’s voice first? If I do, I thought, then I’ll definitely read her novel.

Turns out I love Kathleen’s voice, and after only a few chapters I decided that I will read anything she writes. It’s not just that she’s smart, taking me on a tour of her memory palace, where she’s left tiny objects of personal significance on the kitchen counter or inside the toilet tank; it’s that we’re friends, in the sense that her concerns, the way she thinks and writes about things is exactly how I would want to (or wish to) think about them, if I were smart enough to think about them, that is. What strikes her curiosity also strikes mine. I was completely immersed in this book, whose topic only mildly interested me when I began.

Intimate, smart, curious, she goes from quoting Barthes to recounting stories of growing up in a semi-repressed family. She leads the reader through her thought process for nude modeling, the many contradictions therein, nude vs. naked, professional yet potentially personal, exposed and vulnerable yet powerful. The attendant notions we have of the human body undraped become the way we see the human body, whether that entails shame, power, eros, or clinical facts.

She uses these meditations on modeling as a jumping off point to examine ideas of self, self worth, identity, the gaze, art, and gender, to name just a few of her many concerns—all topics that would otherwise seem a little too abstract or academic (read: boring) if approached straight instead of through the very concrete body of the model on the stand.

Kathleen’s style is engaging. There’s no apparent effort at the seams, though I’m sure she put effort into it; the appearance of it is that she simply steers you in one direction and then another as the gaze would naturally follow points of interest from the feet to the head of a model. The mechanics are invisible. This is not to say that the prose will knock you over (that’s not the point), but it serves the strange shape of the subject matter incredibly well.

What’s the relationship between model and artist? And what’s the relationship between reader and author? Browsing her website, I found out that Kathleen writes poems for strangers with a group she calls “Poems While You Wait”. I also write poems for strangers, a project I started years ago here in Atlanta called “Free Poems on Demand”. Perhaps we could have been friends in an alternate world, maybe even collaborators, but like the artist/model relationship, I dare not reach out and mess up that alternate world.

For each relationship has its contracts, its secret dimensions that are better kept than broken. We think of intimacy so one dimensionally: as rigidly as friends and lovers only. But each intimacy is also a loss of another intimacy. The lover can touch in a certain way that the artist/model dynamic cannot. Yet the artist and model, due to their special constraints, have a special intimacy that only they have access to. It may even inspire the envy of the lover.

This is also true of the reader/author dynamic, which is maybe why I feel like Kathleen is my friend. I feel as if I’ve gained access to the workings of her brain, the way she thinks, or at least the way she thinks on paper. This is the type of intimacy that asks only for the empathy of the reader. In return, a world opens up so that for brief moments of my very boring day, I am someone else. I can’t wait to read more from my new friend, maybe as soon as the library acquires more of her books.

[D.H. Jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Copying my Amazon review from five years ago here to Goodreads)...

I have been a model for drawing and painting classes since 1984, so I was really interested in reading a fellow model's point of view regarding the profession. It is amazing how many parallels there are between the author's experiences and my own, especially in areas that brought us to modeling in the first place. Of course, I'm male, and the author is female, so our experiences differed quite a bit in certain areas. I usually only work for classes or groups while the author expanded into working with individual artists.

The book is full of anecdotes about the history of art modeling, specific classroom incidents, feelings regarding posing for a new group or artist, and what it's like to drop the robe for the first time. Once I finished, I immediately contacted a fellow art model with whom I have worked before and told her that she really ought to read this book. I'll be loaning it to her the next time I see her.

And on a personal note, another interesting parallel: the book was published by the University of Arkansas Press. I began my modeling career at that very university back in November of 1984...

[Layne A. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book combines just the right amount of memoir/self-reflection and art history. Both the writing and scholarship are very impressive. Nude modeling is so far afield from anything most of us would ever do. What great self confidence it takes to do nude modeling and then to write about it. “…my life as an object,” makes one think of all the ways most people are, at times, the object: during love making (an object of lust as Rooney would say), bosses who treat workers as objects, beautiful people who are objectified, etc. Sexual objectification of the body is a subject both women and men should give some serious thought. My favorite quote in the book was Simon Weil’s “A beautiful woman looking at her image in the mirror may very well believe the image is herself. An ugly woman knows it is not” (p. 118.). We are asked to grapple with the concept of physical beauty, aging, etc. in a unique and new way.

Yet a model is not a piece of fruit. She/he can never be an apple, pear, or an orange. By the very act of writing about the experience of nude modeling, Rooney becomes both the subject and the object simultaneously. She is in “estatic cahoots” with herself. Several themes are covered in the book; and I cannot list them all: exhibitionism, eroticism (or lack of it), private acts in public spaces (much like the demeanor of a physician in an examining room, there are all sorts of jointly understood but unstated rules to nude modeling), temporal social/professional connections, eternal life through art (or death obsession), the coldness of photography versus the warmth of the brush, etc.

I think Rooney’s job as a nude model both perpetuates stereotypes about women’s place in society (as objects) and was also empowering for her. She steadfastly maintains her subjectivity throughout her writing. Although she maintains she often had more control over her situations when nude modeling as opposed to clothed, low-waged, employment, Rooney probably had the same control in her clothes jobs too, but was probably just too young to recognize it. The unwritten rules of how to handle gropers, etc. are not so set in the clothes world. Young women have to learn how to keep creeps at a distance. It takes some time to learn how to be rude in a society where women are supposed to smile and be nice.

This is one of the best books I’ve read in a very long time with just the right mix of academics and real life. Lastly, Rooney leaves us with the lines on pg. 163. “Nobody’s existence makes inherent, harmonious sense. That is fiction.” I am left pondering my own life course and all the strange and wonderful experiences I’ve had on the journey, many of which were work related.

Layne A. Simpson, Ph.D.
Washington University in St. Louis

[María Greene F · Rating 1 out of 5]

Encontré súper choro el tema, pero casi ME MUERO de aburrimiento.

No es que le falten sustancia a estos ensayos, sino que justo lo contrario: la autora los recarga demasiado. Todas las anécdotas las mezcla con citas y estudios elevados de temas relativos, lo que podría ser divertido, pero de alguna manera le sale muy tedioso. Considerando que el tema es tan jugoso, creo que ella simplemente carecía de gracia para escribir. O de carisma.

También pienso que quizá la autora tenía tanta necesidad de demostrar que no era tonta o superficial por posar pilucha, que al final inevitablemente dio la lata para mostrar que no era "una de esas". Lo que no habría tenido nada de malo, por lo demás. Posar calata (como dicen los peruanos, jajaja, me encanta esa palabra) para artistas varios, es una forma tan válida como cualquier otra de ganarse unas lucas.

En fin, que me aburrí bastante, tanto que ni siquiera logré terminarlo, y eso que lo renové TRES VECES de la biblioteca. Ahora que se vence la tercera fecha, me libero a mí misma para decir adiós.

La portada, eso sí, es bonita.

[Tara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting exploration of the art world from the perspective of the model. Especially like the sprinkling of philosophy and the offering of historical facts. And Rooney's construction of her own Memory Palace.

[Alyssa True · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book disappointed me. The author had three voices: the poet, the academic, and the prurient giggler. I enjoyed the first and I might have stuck with the second or third, but not all three. I also did not appreciate the Carrie-Bradshaw-inspired pondering. I'm much more interested in the story than the myriad of points so I ended up making fun of it.

I tried to read this on vacation, when I had all the time in the world, and I wanted to read anything but this. The first 50 or so pages went by fairly quickly, which is usually a good sign, yet the book eventually started dragging. And this is not a long book. I couldn't finish.

[Naomi · Rating 1 out of 5]

Sometimes I excitedly start a book only to realize I cannot finish it. I try to force myself to, but I am so uninterested by the story or the voice telling it that I can't concentrate. I end up reading the same paragraph three times, because my mind keeps wandering. This is one of those instances.

I was so excited to find this book, because I earned a living as an art model for 4 years, doing it full time & traveling the US. I had never come across an art model memoir before. But so many of my model friends had amazing blogs that were much better written than this.

[Fernando Soto silva · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lo escribe una joven escritora (varios libros publicados) que es además profesora y modelo nudista para artistas. El título puede llevar a errar al elegir este libro por sobre otro. Lo compré con algo de morbo y me topo con una novela/ensayística repleta de cultura y de historia del arte contada en simple y sobretodo en entretenido. Una belleza total, que deja claro todo el poder que otorga el no tener nada que ocultar (lo de objeto, nada tiene que ver con lo que se piensa)

[Ashraf · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book to show you the life in a way you never see it.

[Baroness · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was elated when I found this little read. First few pages had my full attention but then I completely lost interest.

[Mitchell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kathleen Rooney's Live Nude Girl uses the loose structure of a memoir of her days as an artists' model to explore large issues that wouldn't be immediately apparent to the non-modeling population. The six chapters of the book are actually six essays on various aspects of the nude (and sometimes non-nude) modeling experience. The topics of the first two essays are not unexpected. They are a meditation of 'Nude' vs. 'Naked' and an analysis of the types of relationships possible between the model and the artist.




The next essay is more surprising, a sort of ''Intimations of Immortality', and deals with the model regarding the works created on her. This is a superb, profound meditation.




Following an analysis of the differences between being the object of photography as opposed to the object of drawing or sculpture, comes what I felt to be the most heartfelt section of the book. In a chapter whose title, What it feels like for a girl, reflects Rooney's playful wit and clever use of double-entendre, depicts the differences between posing for women as opposed to posing for men .




A final chapter on what happens when the art object diverges from what the model herself perceives as her own self image rounds out the collection. It is an interesting analysis of the control the artist has over the image, even when the image is inspired by a separate, living human being.




References to thinkers and artists as far ranging as Lacan, Plato, Radiohead and Peewee Herman reveal a writer with a firm command of the whole scope of culture, both high and low. This scope makes her own observations the more compelling and secure.

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. This young woman is really an amazing writer. She seamlessly blends her personal experiences as a nude model with both historical references and contemporary analyses of that unusual profession. She does it in a style that is both scholarly and readable. This is the second book I have read by Rooney - her novel, Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk, was totally different, of course, but just as wonderful. I will be on the lookout for more.

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this to be a very provocative book but not for the reasons that you probably think. Provocative because it forces one to re-evaluate their feelings about self-image, nudity, and sexuality in general.

In any case if you have an opportunity to hear Ms Rooney read don't miss it she is one of the best readers I've ever come across. Perhaps if she ever gives up her writing career she should think about becoming an actress.

[Libbet Bradstreet · Rating 5 out of 5]

The synopsis captures it best as a "lively meditation". Rooney does an extraordinary job of balancing memoir with critical art history. The book acts at once as a critical essay and a girly-indulgence.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best—and only—articulation about what I professionally do that I’ve ever read. For people that don’t understand figure modeling, I would give them this book and ask them to read the beginning and end chapters. The content in the middle doesn’t want to be erotic so badly that it becomes erotic and I wouldn’t want people to get the wrong idea. Or maybe it was trying to be. But it romanticizes the artist-model relationship in a way I don’t relate to. Although I am in agreement with the author/model nearly on all other accounts.

Makes me want to write my own modeling memoir.

Good for art history fanatics too. Lots was touched on and I was surprised to learn how much models WERE written into history, since anytime you walk into a museum or gallery you only see the name of the artist who created the piece but not the model’s name.

[Emtee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unfussy, intelligent, revealing. A highly readable account of how the author supplemented her income, whilst encountering a broad range of talent and temperament.

[Rennie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This meant so much to me, having worked as an art model for many years and feeling like I could have written so many of these words myself (that is, I wish I had written this myself). I couldn't even believe what I was reading sometimes, that it mirrored my own experiences so much.

It does go off the rails a bit - it's impressive that she weaves in so many other subjects, poetical, philosophical, art historical, and so on, and they make this something more than just a memoir of what art modeling is like, but the tangents occasionally go a bit wide.

Still, she's a gorgeous writer (like Elyse says, everyone else already knows this!) and I loved her voice and her ability to switch from the serious to the silly on a whim. But most of all what she captured of this and what it feels like and the strange things it makes you think and feel...it's such a tough, often inexplicable experience to explain to other people, who inevitably misunderstand it, and your motivations, and everything about it, but she put it into words. I loved it.

[Neil McCrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

I saw Kathleen read just prior to JE at a UW bookstore a little while back.

The memoir details her experiences as an art model. I was sold on checking it out by her use of classical references (Pliny, for one)to the life of artists' models.

So far the prose is light, breezy and engaging.

We'll see how it goes.

-------

Just finished this up after having to put it aside in favor of studying market saturation reports (ugh).

Memoirs generally ain't my bag. I tend to find them either too self congratulatory or too consciously self deprecating. The bombast of Winston Churchill or the general nuttiness of Aleister Crowley can be fun, but for less storied individuals I tend to find the navel gazing of most memoirs to be trying. Kathleen's work does succumb to this flaw from time to time, but her wit and sharp perceptions allowed me to overcome my reservations.

Kathleen's accounts of her own experiences read like a pleasant conversation over coffee. Her wider explorations of the nature of the model/artist relationship are a bit more hit or miss. Her use of classical and renaissance figures to explore this relationship works very well, and I would have loved to see more of it ( the absence of any references from Vasari's Lives of the Artists seems odd to me), but the sprinkling of more contemporary sources (Naomi Wolf, Cosmo) didn't work as well for me.

Overall, I enjoyed it and it does make an excellent recommendation for a few friends whose tastes are a little different than my own. I do look forward to tracking down and reading some of Kathleen's poetry.

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

This started off really well but started to drag after the first few chapters. It also felt at times that these were written as separately published essays (the way she writes “Martin, my fiancé” in back to back chapters as though we didn’t already know this, for example). She also seemed a bit condescending about sex work and fat people which took away from my enjoyment of the book.

[Amanda Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautiful writing about a topic that I couldn't really relate to. She did provide some interesting perspectives into something I hadn't thought much about. I don't know that I'd recommend it, but I did enjoy reading it.

[Fern · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is very interesting, very insightful, very well written, and I know the author but I wouldn't say those things unless I meant them.

[Wroderick · Rating 4 out of 5]

From the perspective of one who works with models, both in photography and in life drawing I enjoyed the opportunity to see my fields from a different approach.

[Samhui · Rating 4 out of 5]

Started reading out of curiosity but was quickly attracted to Rooney's fluent and reflective narrative. She is more a writer than an art model. Nice read.

[Mike Rooney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Get ready to be captivated by Kathleen Rooney's masterful storytelling! With a perfect blend of excitement, entertainment, and information, she weaves a tale that will leave you spellbound and wanting more. So sit back, relax, and let Kathleen Rooney take you on an unforgettable journey about being a Live Nude Model. I don't know much about it, and I'm sure many others don't either. The book is structured as a series of personal anecdotes and reflections, providing a unique and intimate perspective on the life of a model. I enjoyed it because I'm interested in Art, young people and their development, and education. 'Live Nude Girl: My Life as an Object' is a story about models and artists, students, grad students, and the faculty in the arts and humanities. It contrasts men and women and how they relate to models. I enjoy Kathleen Rooney's insights about how people perceive themselves and how they evolve and mature. It's a short book and a fun read; I highly recommend it.

[Mike Rooney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Get ready to be captivated by Kathleen Rooney's masterful storytelling! With a perfect blend of excitement, entertainment, and information, she weaves a tale that will leave you spellbound and wanting more. So sit back, relax, and let Kathleen Rooney take you on an unforgettable journey about being a Live Nude Model. I don't know much about it, and I'm sure many others don't either. The book is structured as a series of personal anecdotes and reflections, providing a unique and intimate perspective on the life of a model. I enjoyed it because I'm interested in Art, young people and their development, and education. 'Live Nude Girl: My Life as an Object' is a story about models and artists, students, grad students, and the faculty in the arts and humanities. It contrasts men and women and how they relate to models. I enjoy Kathleen Rooney's insights about how people perceive themselves and how they evolve and mature. It's a short book and a fun read; I highly recommend it.

[Witoldzio · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting perspective on the psychology of modelling and art. Well-written, I liked that it was totally not formulaic. The book doesn't follow a prescribed path and it feels kind of improvisatory, a collection of notes put together. However, I must admit that as I was reading I was gradually becoming frustrated with the slow pace. Was the pace too relaxed for me?

[Sheila]

DNF

[Gregg Chadwick · Rating 5 out of 5]

During Lady Gaga's entertaining Thanksgiving special she joked about her brief gig as a life model for singer and visual artist Tony Bennett. Gaga recounted:

"I walked in and said, 'Well, Tony, here we are,' and I dropped my robe and I got into position. I felt shy and thought, 'It's Tony Bennett. Why am I naked?"

Lady Gaga had come face to face with what Kathleen Rooney describes as the “spine-tingling combination of power and vulnerability, submission and dominance” of nude modeling in her marvelous book Live Nude Girl : My Life As An Object.

Rooney's book provides an introspective look at the history and challenges of art modeling from the model's point of view. Rooney's meditative prose leads us to a point of connection between muse and artist.

Why after centuries of images in charcoal, paint, stone and silver print do artists still feel the need to depict the human figure? For me it is our shared connection as sentient, sexual, and spiritual beings. By taking the time to deeply look at and into another person we move closer to finding the ghost in the human machine. At our core we are all naked.