A moan in three parts...
I first came across Turnip Starfish through Kat, an art tutor I have known for some time. The owner of the animation company, Nick, was teaching a first session of life drawing at Cardiff and the Vale and I think this was at the old campus near St Mellons.
After the session I reached out to Nick and said if ever he needed models etc. and in fact we did supply, free of charge, a model who went on to be the face of a student campaign that he needed to shoot. However he never mined the skills of Cardiff Life Model collective and so the first moan is really about castle building. People, it seems, would rather build from the ground up than work collectively and utilise the best of the locally available skills and services...
We are Cardiff Life Models. We really ought to be the one stop shop for all of your and Nick's and whoever's modelling needs. Regularly working models are more experienced, more comfortable and more reliable. You have to ask why would you want to go elsewhere for your naked people?
The second moan is about deliberate and what we see as aggressive competition... We at Cardiff Life Model Collective know that there will be others wishing to deliver life drawing in Cardiff. We have no problem with that but we would wish that there be some thought given to the artists... By that we mean please don't all desire to deliver your sessions on the same day as Cardiff Life Models. Firstly it will impact upon both of our abilities to gain clients for the evening in question and secondly it limits the choice for artists living locally. We have contacted Nick regarding his scheduling of sessions on a Tuesday evening, the evening we have been delivering life drawing in Cardiff for about 8 years now, and he says there is nothing he can do about it. We think that is very poor judgement indeed...
And on a final matter - women only models. This has become a thing and will be something that I post more about in the near future. Now, I'm not accusing Turnip Starfish of only working with female life models... But... A quick run through of the companies instagram sees one male model in 2017 and again one male in 2018. For 2019, you've guessed it, one male... We at Cardiff Life Model Collective believe that it is important to have a roughly equal mix of male and female models when offering life drawing through tutored sessions and through drop in sessions. It is highly unusual to 'only' offer female models, it limits learning and it is likely illegal with regards to UK employment law.
I see no future relationship with Cardiff Life Model Collective and Turnip Starfish. My motivation for writing this piece? Well, it's born from a feeling of sadness at a grievance that is undeserved. We wanted to work with Nick, in fact we did work with Nick.
We want to work with other providers, not against, but it would seem Cardiff Life Model Collective stand naked and alone in that matter...