I entered the room very unsure of what to expect. I had just turned 18 the month before and not sure of what would take me beyond the high school educational experiences that I suffered through. After much parental pleading, I was able to enroll in a foundations art program at a nearby community college. It was kind of the way I had to convince my parents that art was my thing. My sister had been accepted into a university art program before me, but had dropped out to be with her boyfriend at another school in Virginia. It was going to be a hard sell for me to prove that I was dedicated to pursuing a costly higher ed degree in art and hopefully an eventual transfer to the same school and program that my sister had dropped out of.
I was carrying the course required drawing tools for this class in my backpack and a rather awkwardly sized portfolio to carry my finished work. We were all new art students - like broken winged butterflies flitting around trying to land in the same space. My heart was beating rapidly and brought my breath into a twisted knot inside my chest. This is what anxiety mixed with curiosity felt like. I had never stood and stared at a naked body with nineteen other people in the same room with me. Would I be able to separate the sexual response from the artist's capture?