“Two Models With Three Masks and Carousel Lion,” Philip Pearlstein
The first time Candace Mills pulled on the leopard mask it was supposed to be a joke, but she ended up having to wear it for months.
The cumbersome antique was designed to be worn in a circus performance, but Mills saw its red mouth and finger-length fangs — so clearly designed to communicate viciousness from afar — as a perfect foil to the skimpy bra and panties she had on. When her boss walked in and caught her wearing it, his reaction wasn’t what she hoped.
“He saw me and was like, ‘Well, that’s perfect. We’re gonna do that next.’”
Her boss was Philip Pearlstein, one of the most celebrated figurative artists of the 20th century. Mills, who now lives in Nashville and owns the cleaning company Team Clean, was living in New York at the time and working as an artist’s model. During her time as a live model, Mills has been in at least 30 paintings by some of the most important artists in contemporary art — from Alex Katz and Duncan Hannah to Inka Essenhigh and Nashville’s own Shannon Cartier Lucy — including three large Pearlstein paintings that feature her wearing one of those oversized carnival masks. Pearlstein’s “Two Models With Three Masks and Carousel Lion” is particularly interesting, because it shows the owl tattoo Mills has on her left shoulder. As an artist’s model, Mills has posed for some of the most important and influential figurative artists working, but Pearlstein was the only one who painted her tattoos.
When she was in her 20s, Mills sold her first cleaning business and moved to New York. “I had a little bit of a buffer, but I was looking for something to do,” she tells the Scene. A friend suggested she should be an artist’s model — Mills has exhibitionist tendencies and doesn’t mind being naked for stretches of time. “And it’s a subversive sort of left-of-center thing to do that won’t consume me like a job can, but it’s something I can take seriously,” she says. “If you know me, you know that I’ll try anything twice — that’s the running Mills joke.”
There’s an entire subculture of artists’ models, especially in New York, where the art market is woven into the fabric of the city. You could say Mills has a very particular set of skills that makes her adept at being an artist’s model — mainly confidence, she says, but also a lack of ego.
“You don’t get paid a lot, so you’ve got to hustle,” she says. “You’ve also got to set your ego aside, because you’re really just hired as a prop.”
“Once I decided that I was going to try it, I took a studious approach to it and listed where I would go, and did it.” She started at the Art Students League, because that’s where photographer Lee Miller, one of her personal heroes, had studied.
Candace Mills in Pearlstein's studio
Mills quickly realized she loved the work. Being around artists at that level is energizing, and she seems to enjoy the contrast between studious and silly — some of her best stories involve both high- and low-brow details. There was the time she discussed avant-garde composer Iannis Xenakis with Alex Katz while Mills was topless, “in some sort of cheesecake pose.” Another time, she worked for a friend who was giving private drawing lessons to revered theater director and filmmaker André Gregory. During a drawing lesson, Gregory was discussing a recent article he’d read, and Mills joined in from her artist-model perch.
“I just joined the convo while I’m, like, draped over a ladder, naked,” she says with a laugh. “And we just started talking about how charming The New York Review of Books classifieds are, and how we both like to read them.” She went on to model for him a few more times, and was able to compliment his performance as John the Baptist in The Last Temptation of Christ. “I won him over in that regard,” she says.
Does Mills ever consider herself a muse? Not really.
“I was hired, they liked me, I was available,” she says matter-of-factly. She doesn’t think she ever rose to the level of being anyone’s inspiration — she considers herself more of a hired hand who just happens to feel comfortable being naked in front of others for hours at a time.
“You know, I’m not a good dancer,” she says. “I thought about trying to strip, just to try it. I can’t. I’m a goober. But I can, like, pull it off in a pose.
“Plus it’s just more interesting to hang out with artists.”
