One Thursday evening, Steve and I arrived at our weekly figure drawing session and discovered the model was a male, probably in his mid-40s. As I paid my two dollar fee and set up my paper and materials, I became somewhat concerned. The model, who was wearing a redish-pink robe, was assembling a tenor saxophone. "Is he going to play this saxophone while posing?" I thought to myself.

At seven o'clock, the man dropped his robe and perched naked on the edge of a stool that was sitting on the raised platform in the middle of the room. He held the sax in his hands, and as I feared, put the mouthpiece into his mouth. I was uncomfortable because I imagined that ever since this man started playing saxophone in Junior High School, he had probably had a fantasy about playing the saxophone naked in front of an audience. I didn't mind drawing his figure, but I didn't really want to participate in the realization of his life-long fantasy.

But, what was I to do? I had come all that distance to draw. I had already paid my two dollars. I reluctantly resigned myself to being in the man's audience as he played his saxophone naked.

As I started to draw, however, I noted that the music wasn't half bad. He played what seemed to be improvised Jazz music, very calm and relaxing. Before long I found myself lost in his music and my drawing.

Afterwards, Steve and I talked about our experience. We both thought our drawing went well that evening, and that the music had indeed inspired us to produce good art. A day or two after this experience, I wrote the following poem about the experience and sent it in an e-mail to Steve.

It was a rainy evening as I recall,
The windy gusts chilled us to the bone,
The night we first saw this unusual
Naked man playing a saxophone.

We paused and stared with considerable unease.
Our hearts sank with knowledge unforeknown.
We had wanted to draw naked ladies,
Not a naked man playing a saxophone.

With a frown we set up our pads of paper,
We carved our crayons into sharpened cones.
We reluctantly surrendered to the musical vapor
Of the naked man playing a saxophone.

Yet as our crayons met the paper they glided with ease,
Led on and inspired by the musical tones.
They rendered the figure, slightly obese,
Of the naked man playing a saxophone.

The colors, the shapes, formed as if by magic.
We found ourselves enchanted in a musical zone.
It was then that we realized it was not so tragic
To draw a naked man playing a saxophone.