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40 years in his job, UTA’s nude model hopes he is ‘only halfway through this career’

At work, Dan Hawkins, 58, usually wears his contact lenses, wedding ring and — that’s it. No clothes. For almost 40 years, Hawkins has been an art nude model for life drawing classes at museums and schools across the Metroplex, including UTA. Throughout his part-time modeling career, he has also posed nude for paintings, sculptures and a little photography. “I love this job,” he said. “I love talking about it. Especially with people who’ve never been in a life drawing class because it is very clinical. There’s nothing erotic or untoward about it. This is the human body.” Hawkins’ first gig was Nov. 6, 1984, when he attended the University of Arkansas. He signed up to impress a girl he met in the dining hall, who told him her class drew nude models, Hawkins said. When he was called to be a last-minute replacement, he spent an hour before the class taking a long walk around the campus to contemplate. “When it was over, it’s like the opposite. It’s like, ‘I don’t want to get dressed,’” he said. “This is so freeing and so fun, too.” He got $5 an hour. Most on-campus jobs paid a minimum wage of $3.35. Hawkins never modeled in the life drawing class of the girl he planned to impress, and she never got to see him at work either, he said. He sought nude modeling opportunities at UTA after transferring in 1986 and then at other universities. Hawkins graduated from UTA in 1990. This fall semester, he has modeled for Texas Christian University, UTA and some colleges in Dallas. On average, he models around six weeks’ worth of classes at UTA, Hawkins said. On a bright day outside in October, the lights inside a classroom at the Studio Arts Center were dimmed. Lo-fi hip-hop beats soothed through the speaker. As Hawkins stood firmly on the stage, students sat or stood in a semicircle, filling their canvases with his pose in their medium of choice: pencils, charcoal or oil pastels. Hawkins’ experience allows him to offer different poses depending on the lighting, said Hallee Turner, art adjunct assistant professor. Oftentimes, he brings his own props or finds them in the classroom. “He’s very still. He has dynamic poses. He really considers what the artists need to work from,” Turner said. Although the department has three other nude models, Hawkins poses so often for Turner’s class that his measurements are ingrained in her students’ minds, she said. “Whenever we have other models, they’re like, ‘Oh, this is different,’” Turner said. Memorizing Hawkins’ measures has its pros and cons, drawing animation senior Ryan Oxner said. When Oxner took life drawing in the summer, there were just two models including Hawkins. Now in the fall, he started realizing Hawkins’ muscle, bones and other proportions, which is helpful, he said. The con? “Whenever you do switch models, it’s like, ‘Oh no, I’m trying to draw them like Dan,’” he said. Hawkins never kept this part of his life secret, he said, but he rarely talked about it outside of college art departments until 2001. When he got on the hot seat of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” 23 years ago, host Regis Philbin was fascinated by his part-time job. “The pot that I could win was over $2 million,” he said. “I was more nervous about talking about being a nude model than I was about trying to play the game.” Hawkins won $32,000 that day. He credited his performance to Philbin’s curiosity. “Once I got over that initial conversation with Regis and he started asking me the questions, I kind of calmed down,” he said. “I think it helped me in terms of playing the game.” Hawkins is self-employed and is trying to make nude modeling his full-time job, as he has gotten more hours in the last two or three years. He gets paid between $25 and $30 an hour, depending on the school, he said. Hawkins hopes he is only halfway through this career, he said. People are taught to wear clothes all the time and to have a certain amount of body shame, so not many people could do his job, Hawkins said. Even some who found confidence couldn’t pull off the poses. He has learned over the years what artists like. Usually, he chooses the poses — sitting, standing or ones that mimic athletes’ stances such as tug of war, boxing or disc throwing. “You can tell he’s having fun with it,” Turner said. “I think that’s part of the different energy. He’s just willing to try anything, and the students really respond to that.” Because the job is vulnerable, nude models can understandably be quieter or more reserved, she said, but Hawkins puts students at ease by talking to them during breaks and creating a sense of collaboration. Some models would choose to be more professional and tune out with their headphones between sets, Oxner said, but that’s not Hawkins. “Dan is just present the whole time,” he said. Sometimes, Hawkins is tasked to hold poses for one or two minutes, he said. Some classes require him to hold poses for 45. When Hawkins models, he thinks about story ideas and plot points for his novels — he has published four as D. H. Jonathan. Or he simply counts the time. Drawing senior Kade Winterton said Hawkins and students would goof around during breaks about Hawkins’ appearance on “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” and his career as a novelist. The back-and-forth jokes make for light-hearted moods. “We get to know him more than the other models, which I think can be more personal,” Winterton said. “Our works have that kind of connection from knowing him more. The other ones, I feel like I was just drawing a model.” After 40 years, nothing bothers Hawkins much anymore during those classes, he said. “I do like hearing people tell me how good of a model I am, so I keep doing it,” he said. “It makes me feel young, motivated and just stay as physically fit as I can be.” Hawkins walks between 6,000 and 10,000 steps per day, he said. Occasionally, he does push-ups and some leg lifts. His diet consists of high protein, low carb and low sugar. “I’m gonna take off all my clothes in front of three, four different classes here in the next two weeks, I’d better not get all fat and sloppy,” he said, laughing. He hasn’t been put in awkward or embarrassing poses before, Hawkins said. One time in spring 1985 at Arkansas, however, he was asked to put on a “goofy” straw hat and do a meditating pose. In the middle of class, a girl he saw regularly outside the art groups walked in. At that moment, Hawkins said, he felt more embarrassed by what he was wearing than what he wasn’t. @DangHLe news-editor.shorthorn@uta.edu
By Dang Le, The Shorthorn staff | Tue, Oct 22, 2024

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