About Us

DC Art Model Collective is a volunteer(all models) formed and led group. Our collective mission is to create an encouraging, supportive, and advocating network that connects life models to each other, to the figurative artists(painters, drawers, sculptors, and similar mediums) that work with us, and to the art communities in and around the DC Metro and the surrounding east coast areas.*

*Surrounding areas includes: Connecticut,
Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Virginia, Vermont, Washington(DC), & West Virginia.

Our Beginning

DC Art Model Collective(DCAMC) began in the early 2000’s with local art models Sheba, Jalene, LiiLii, & Francine. Gazelle joined the DCAMC team in the mid 2010’s. Together they sought to create a model run network that supported and provided resources to life art models in the DC Metro area. During the next several years the team worked together advocating for a number of important issues for local life art models. This included wage increases, safer work practices, and more hygienic work spaces for models.

Transition

The pandemic influenced a major shift in the collective goal for DCAMC. Many models were suddenly without work and were unsure(as were many others) abut what to do. DCAMC sprung into action with learning online technology and then began sharing and training models, artists, and art institutions to host classes, drawing sessions, and art events. Lead and organized by Jalene, DCAMC also began hosting their monthly Model Extravaganza events that became such a hit in the art community, other groups began to host similar events as a spinoff.

As the online work progressed during the pandemic, DCAMC began to realize that there were no spaces for artists and models to connect with each other in a professional and supportive way. This was such a necessity during a time when everyone was feeling so isolated from each other and wanting to feel and be more connected to each other and the art community they loved. This need spearheaded the desire and transition for DCAMC to create a space that connected life models and artists to each other, not just during the pandemic but afterwards as well.

Where We are Now

DCAMC’s current collective mission is to create an encouraging, supportive, and advocacy network that connects life models to each other, to figurative art institutions/artists that work with us, and to the figurative art communities in and around the DC Metro and the surrounding east coast areas.* This network provides support to life art models through the following resources:

~ Job Board

~ Model Trainings

~ Model Social Events

~ Model Community Networking

~ Model-focused Groups

~ Much More!

Figurative artists and art institutions are also part of this network and we support them with the following resources:

~ Job Board

~ Artists Residencies

~ Artists workshops

~Artists Social Events

~ Artists Community Networking

~ Artist-focused Groups

~ Much More!

*Currently our resources and services only support figurative artists of the following mediums: Painting, Drawing, Sculpture, and Textiles. We currently do not have the resources to support figurative artists whose primary medium is photography. However we do realize there is often overlap of this medium(photography) with the mediums(painting, drawing, sculpture, and textiles) that we do support. We hope to add resources to fully support this medium in the future.