Julian Opie on finding models for a series of portraits in 2006.

I had arranged to meet Clare in a pub on Cambridge Circus. She turned up looking very glamorous in a shimmering black evening dress. We drank gin and tonics and I smoked a cigarette even though I don't smoke. Clare looks after me at my London Gallery but we talked instead about her part-time charity work. I think we were both a bit nervous about the evening's assignment.

A month before, Clare, my friend Paul and I, had visited a ‘gentleman's club’ to look at pole dancers. My friend had turned white, I had forked out a lot of cash and Clare had taken down the names of the best dancers. Clare then contacted the club and asked if Bambi or Heather would like to do some modelling. Neither of them contacted the gallery and I was running out of time for the project. I had been asked to make a wall drawing for an art museum in Ontario. The room I chose was full of Henry Moore sculptures, mostly of reclining nudes. I thought it might look good if I placed my drawings of nudes behind the Moores.

My drawings, up until then, had been very vertical, posed, and static. People naturally stand and are therefore vertical. If they sit or lie down, the bed or floor or chair become part of the image and have an impact on the body shape. It occurred to me that the only way to get a more dynamic pose while keeping the body free of any background, was to use a pole for the model to hang from and lean against. The pole allows the body to be seen from various angles in various positions. I had not at first intended to use the whole figure or to include the pole. Previous wall drawings had shown a small ‘slice’ of the body, blown up large, only just recognizable as a nude. I ordered a pole on the internet and set it up in the studio. Having decided on the pole, it seemed more interesting to follow through and use a professional pole dancer.

So, anyway, we headed off into Soho to look for a place called Raymond's Revue Bar. My last experience of a Soho club was back in the eighties with a trip to a transvestite cabaret club and it turned out that Raymond's had closed. So we wandered into the nearest strip club, which was much seedier than the up-market gentleman's bar that we had tried on the previous attempt. Every surface was painted matte-black and the lighting was somehow dim but harsh. We paid a disinterested man who sat behind the counter and were sent upstairs to a small, private cinema-like space. The stage was large, matte-black, surrounded by mirrors and had three poles. Three girls danced. The central pole was the focus and that dancer was the most active. When she finished her dance and strip she would head off to the bar and the girls would shuffle along a pole as a new dancer came on stage. There was only space for two rows of red velvet seating and we slid into the back row. We sat for a while trying not to look at the other customers and focusing on why we were there. One girl was easily the best pole dancer that we saw, and so once she had finished her number we went into the side bar and waited for her to turn up. I asked her to sit with us and Clare showed her some of my catalogues while I asked if she would be willing to pose for a couple of afternoons. She said yes, seemed very sweet and quite interested in the idea but not at all pushy. More as if she was saying, "Sure, why not? Could be fun for a change." She told us her name was Shahnoza and that she came from Tehran. She then went back on stage, it was hard to see where she could have kept the card that Clare had given her.

 As we left the doorman took pity on us, told us we should not be wandering around that area and offered to take us by cab to a much more "appropriate" club. "You two are from out of town right?" he said.

This club was more pretentious. It had a leopard skin interior, lounge seating and waitresses. The ceiling seemed low and it was hard to see where the room ended. There were only a few customers but a lot of women wandering around the floor as well as dancing up on stage. You had to check your coat and buy a drink.

It is difficult to choose a model. Until I start drawing, I don't fully know what I want from a project, so it’s hard to tell who will be good to draw. It's a matter of personality, or at least style, as well as body type. I focused on finding someone who could dance well and had hips. We had to buy a number of the incredibly expensive drinks before Bruna had time to talk to us. Again we described the project and asked if she would be interested. Bruna was also very nice, a bit more air hostess-like, but friendly and casual. She was a really good pole-dancer, I thought, able to shimmy up the pole and hang upside-down. She also took a card and said she would call.

A few days later, I was giving up hope and thinking I would have to try the health club angle, when Shahnoza called. We arranged a time and I gave her instructions on the type of clothes to bring. She said she would bring her own music. She cancelled the first appointment, saying she was ill. I felt like I was fishing and that the fish could get away, even at the last minute. But she turned up the following week and worked very hard. It was an intense and tiring two days with two video cameras and a stills camera all going simultaneously. It's important to give a model an idea of what you want, but I find that the best moves and positions usually come from the sitter. You have to guide and follow while dealing with the technical side as well (I don't like anybody helping). The music has to be right, the films and batteries changed, focus, camera angle, lighting, all while I try to remember what kind of positions I wanted to draw. We picked five or six of the costumes that she bought and she spent a lot of time getting the outfits and accessories and even make-up right. We improvised a number of moves and dances and repeated them in each of the costumes. I took over a thousand photos and then did the same thing the next day but with her hair tied up. The second day was more successful.

Going through two thousand photos and hours of video is almost as much work as doing the drawings and I have to keep searching as I refine my ideas of what I want to draw. As usual, the first attempts were unsuccessful, too dependent on previous logics. I tend to lose heart a little as I flounder around until something seems to work. Eventually, a simple format emerged: four drawings of each outfit, in contrasting poses, showing the whole figure and the pole she moves around. Once a set of drawings are made I can play around with what I want to do with them. I draw on the computer over the digital photos. The drawings can be outputted in a number of ways.