22.02.12

The model stood perfectly still in her ivory and grayish-blue silk ballerina costume. She posed for Virginia Beach artist Mary Thumma in some of ballet's most recognizable steps: first, second, third and fourth positions.

She cooperated without a word during the three months it took Thumma to draw the four illustrations.

It's impossible to talk when you're a skeleton in a tutu.

Some people may be shocked by Thumma's charcoal renditions of a (literally) bony ballerina, but that's the point, Thumma said.

She was "inspired or provoked" to the canvas, she said, last year when New York Times critic Alastair Macaulay reviewed "George Balanchine's The Nutcracker" at New York City Ballet. In his review, Macaulay said prima ballerina Jenifer Ringer, as the Sugar Plum Fairy, "looked as if she'd eaten one sugarplum too many."

"I later saw an interview of this beautiful ballerina and was appalled by his comments," said Thumma, who has taught at Tidewater Community College's Visual Arts Center in Olde Towne Portsmouth and studied art at Virginia Commonwealth University and in Italy from 2000 to 2004.

Source: The Virginian-Pilot