FROM FIGURE MODELING TO CABBIE NEWS AND FASHION

Back when I lived in Florida, I used to model for high school and college drawing classes. I'd stay still in difficult poses for long periods of time, so that the art students could get a good sketch of the subject. I'd bring in all sorts of props to entice them to draw; like pick axes, shovels, hammers, hats, balls, books, and sometimes a knotted assortment of used rubber bicycle tubes to stretch out in. I'd use all these props to create poses that were more exciting for the students to draw than what they were used to (figure models with no imagination).

These pictures were taken by Sunny Shokrae, a professional photographer who came on board the cab to gather visual material on behalf of Danielle Friedman, a journalism student at Columbia, who had been interviewing cabdrivers for a story on how we feel about GPS + TAXI TV SCREENS. Obviously, we are not OK with the same obnoxious blurbs being repeated each time a new passenger gets in. She contacted me through this blog and interviewed me in the cab for an hour while jotting notes down. I hadn't felt like I was being watched by as many eyes as this since my days as a figure model in those art courses. Not much came out of it, except this article, and these leftover photographs.