"I call these sketches exploratory drawings," says artist Elizabeth Bennett. "I wanted to study the peaceful eroticism that comes over a woman's body in repose. The models would arrive at the studio about ten P.M. We'd share an Irish coffee, look at first editions of Beardsley, Rackham and Dulac, then they'd relax, fall asleep, dream. The transformation was close to the change you see in a lover after making love. The devils in them would disappear. Sleep is a mystery. Sometimes I would work until morning, trying to capture that magic, that beauty."
"I've been drawing since I was nine months old, but I didn't get serious about it until I was five. I would sit in my father's office, studying the faces of the people who come to see him. He was a doctor, maritime lawyer and insurance salesman. At closing time, we'd go to a neighborhood bar. I'd discuss life and politics with the patrons and draw their faces on place mats. I was a midget Toulouse-Lautrec."
"Drawing is very intimate. The women you see here were friends to begin with or they became friends. Many of them agreed to pose in return for one of my sketches. We exchanged time. Every drawing was a cooperative effort, something that we worked toward through the evening. Something worth sharing."
"I don't consider myself a fine artist. When I sit down with a sketchbook in front of a model, I'm not out to express myself. I merely want to draw that person and to find out about drawing. A sketch won't happen if there's outside interference. There used to be a phone in my studio, but I had it disconnected. Every half hour the thing would ring--it would be the model's mother or lover or whatever. Now there are just the moments of concentration and rapport. And learning."
