Friday 5th March 2010

Spend all day trying to get away to draw. Phone rings again. Gorgeous is feeling faint and the school says I have to collect her. I am suspicious and deliver her some paracetamol.
Eventually I get to Shepherd Market meeting with MW to discuss the show. The gentlemen artist who is currently exhibiting in the gallery and has shown there on three separate occasions says there has been interest in my fliers and people agree with him that interesting as the petition is, it should be displayed in the back room as it is a discrete back room subject which may not be well received in this neighbourhood. He said, “This really isn’t a red light district anymore, its very respectable.” MW and I weigh the pros and cons of his argument. He has a point, and I may have shot myself in the foot in terms of gaining commissions for family portraiture but there is no changing direction now. I resolve to give the 2 best walls of the gallery and the window to The Drawn Petition.

After, I draw an Algerian restaurant manager and two of his staff and then a couple who are romancing under a tree in the courtyard. They offer me Champaign. They laugh when I tell them about the artist who said this was not a red light district, and they direct me to the ads in the phone box. I draw them together, they work for a law firm and say they will invite people, but I cannot get a card from them. I tell them that I had the intention of going into the walk-ups but it is too late now. They say do it, but do not show your letter.

The entrances to the walk-ups have red lights as do the windows of the flats but no sign at all that is visible from the door way. In the daytime it is easy to miss them. Further up the stairs are hand written posters for ‘lovely new girl’ etc ‘NO Rush’ is emphasized. There are also more coloured lights. It is truly seedy; cheap and neglected.

I show my letter with its Red Umbrella logo and the flier. I get:
1. An interested reception at the first door opened by late thirties Russian lady who speaks good English and takes the material for consideration.
2. Recognition from the next old lady who says that she has a Thai girl who has a leaflet and wants be drawn, come back during the week.
3. Head shaking from an old croan who acts as if she does not speak English.
4. Suspicion from an elderly Caribbean lady who takes the papers form behind the security gate.
5. A lovely warm welcome into the sitting room by a soft, well-spoken English woman with a kind smiling face.

Shortly after, she bustles me into a small kitchen/store room and sends in EP. EP is 28, she comes from a small village in Hispanic Europe and lives in a small town in Scotland where she works in a nail bar. She has come down to help out a friend who has had to take time off. She sits as any other sitter would on a pile of boxes and I crouch against the sink. The main thing is that like so many of my sitters, she has not been drawn before and is curious and happy to oblige. The drawing is very sweet and certainly reminiscent of 19th century French drawing, but EP does not look wan or pitiful. Come to think of it, neither do a lot of the girls captured by artists of 19th century Parisian nightlife.

After, the Maid comes in for a chat. We agree she should be called IQ. She speaks in a hushed confiding tone. She is a pensioner from West London; She has never been a prostitute and comes in to earn a little cash to feed her five rescued cats. She says the job keeps her in Flea powder. I have now met 10 maids. I now know enough older, poor working class women to say that none of them are getting rich on the back of immoral earnings. She tells me that last year, the police put up denigrating posters in the square referring to the presence of sex workers. Then, when it was not her shift, there was a raid. It was brutal, and terrified the girl and the Maid. Their surveillance cameras on the stairs were smashed and money removed. When this was raised in court, the police denied it. Nothing was found to incriminate the girl or the Maid.

We thanked each other. I went off to the pub and the sultry Latvian barman asked why I had not come earlier. He had distributed the flyers at the bus stop; perhaps this is how the Thai girl got it. My fur hat draws much attention from men. And I easily got my first sitter, a handsome young property developer from Berkley Square. He decided to bare his chest and undid his shirt. Cool. I was starving and went to get a sandwich. When I got back, I noticed that he had changed his shirt. It was now blue. It turned out this was a twin brother. When they were 14, they had to go and stay for an entire fortnight with the artist who painted portraits their entire family. They said it was absolutely grim.

I caught the eye of an attractive black lady at the bar. She works in a private sports club but is studying reporting, she asks if she can do an article on the show. This is two good things that RL bar man has brought to me.

I cycle onto Soho. Its horrible and daunting. Go into a book shop and look at art house porn by photographers such as Rankin. Prefer a book from thirties Paris. The pubic hair looks quaint. Go home.