When Bettie Page began posing nude in the 1950s for New York City’s camera clubs—amateur photography groups for gentlemen—scandalized critics whispered that they didn’t even have film in their cameras: They were simply using them as an excuse to look at a naked woman.
That said, nothing cures a hangover at 3 p.m. on a Saturday like drinking more beer and admiring sequined, sporadically costumed models—you know, the kind of girls who wouldn’t go home with you after that one night at Piano’s—all in the name of art. Refreshingly, Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School admits its sketchiness upfront—whatever happened to the old, weird New York?—and on Saturday afternoons twice a month, amateur and professional artists, scarred by memories of art-school dullness, gather for their own kind of life-drawing session.
On a recent December afternoon, for example, burlesque performer Clams Casino posed with boughs of tinsel and holly, her shapely bottom adorned with a bow, a flute of champagne sitting just out of reach. There was a basket of homemade gingerbread cookies for the taking and, if you ignored the camera crew, Williamsburg’s Lucky Cat felt homey and warm. Most importantly, it offered an excuse to drink without judgment in the afternoon. Actually, maybe that’s the reason why one of the drawing contest winners—in the “best use of a dysfunctional Santa” category—featured the jolly old elf in a graphic sexual act with Ms. Casino. Another contest winner—a tiny, underage-looking girl in a red sweater—was brought onstage to slam her prize, which was neon green and came in a shot glass.
In retrospect, Williamsburg was the perfect place for the Dr. Sketchy’s franchise to begin. For hordes of young people coming to terms with the financially useless nature of their art degrees, it’s a chance to practice the most basic fundamentals of visual art: the life-drawing class. Consider the participant who was overheard detailing the rigors of receiving an unemployment check: “They, like, make you document all the jobs you’ve applied for every week,” he was explaining, incredulously. “I usually make it up.”
Thanks to the power of the Internet and clever self-promotion by its founder, illustrator Molly Crabapple, and her co-host, cartoonist/illustrator John Leavitt, one-year-old Dr. Sketchy’s has expanded to 16 cities, including Toronto, Berlin and Melbourne. This being New York, however, success can really only be measured in terms of a book deal. With that in mind, Dr. Sketchy’s Official Rainy Day Colouring Book is a visual feast of Crabapple and Leavitt’s illustrations and photos of Dr. Sketchy’s drawing sessions, rendered in full color.
Crabapple and Leavitt want to lure you in with their salaciousness, and they do—there is, after all, an entire section devoted to drawing breasts—But look closer: the overarching theme, besides the lush, Rococo, full-color illustrations of modern painted ladies, is: Hey, you can do this, too. The book offers a DIY, pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps guide to making your own creative pursuits happen, alongside loopy paper dolls and a caffeinated “History of Depraved Life Drawing.”
Something should be said of Crabapple’s illustrations; they are their own reason to buy the book, encompassing a delightful sense of movement, sensuality, and whimsy. You can almost imagine squeezing the flesh of her subjects, but as that’s déclassé, at least you can settle for drawing them. Just be sure to watch it with those $3 Bohemias.
Jan. 6 (with Little Brooklyn). Lucky Cat Lounge, 245 Grand St. (betw. Driggs & Roebling), B’klyn, 718-782-0437; 3-6, $15.
