Drawing figures City: Visual art students get rare chance to sketch live models

There's a pile of disembodied mannequins lying, mangled, in a pile in the corner.
    It would be an odd sight to behold anywhere but a figure-drawing class, where, right now, no one is acknowledging their existence.
    Instead, their eyes are fixed on the young, pony-tailed model lying perfectly still in the center of the room.
    Glancing back and forth from their easels to the woman, the teenage artists carefully study the contours of the woman's body then try to transfer their vision onto paper.
    It's another intense day at The Visual Art Institute's Figure Drawing Academy in Sugar House where artists - ages 12 through 18 - learn to draw the human body - a covered-up version, that is.
    Because the artists are underage, the model isn't nude - she wears flesh-colored undergarments.
    Other than that minor detail, the class is just like a college figure-drawing class.
    Which is usually where artists first learn to draw the human form. High schools almost never offer to teach the skill even though students must know how to draw figures to get into a decent art school.
    "This is very unique," said Bruce Robertson, executive director of the Visual Art Institute, motioning to the 17 young artists stationed at easels in a huge circle around the room. "No one else does this."
    The workshop is Robertson's brainchild. He wanted to give younger kids the chance to create work worthy of including in their college-admission portfolios. Some students hope to get into prestigious art schools, such as the Art Institute of Chicago.
    Kourtney Keisker is one of those students. The Olympus senior has been looking forward to the 10-day, $500 academy all summer.
    "Even the little kids are amazing," Keisker said. "They have so much potential."
    Keisker and her classmates work on art from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. in an old school gymnasium. There's no air conditioning so the artists rely on strategically placed fans and Otter Pops to keep cool. They draw in the mornings, paint in the afternoons and the day ends with extensive critiques.
    "I look at the older and more-experienced artists, and I think, 'Wow, I can't wait to be like them,' " Keisker said, "and the teachers are awesome."
    Instructor Kate Mooth studied art at BYU before earning a master's at Detroit's Wayne State. Mooth attended the VAI as a teen, and it gave her a "huge jump" on her college studies.
    Mooth has since returned to the VAI - an after-school art academy in its 30th year - to help build up the curriculum.
    Mooth, who has taught art at the college level, said VAI students often have more experience than college students. She's impressed by how much students improve after a short time at the academy - no matter their skill level.
    "Students go from A to Z in a couple days," Mooth said.
    The most important thing Mooth imparts to her students is that nothing they create at the VAI is precious, so they shouldn't be tentative.
    The artwork "could be destroyed by a fire," Mooth said. "It's the process that matters."
    ndicou@sltrib.com