Make sure to check out the Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School & Bottoms Up Burlesque photo gallery accompanying this story:
http://www.indy.com/galleries/4833

I’m sitting on the floor of a bar, propped up against a girl dressed as an erotic version of the Queen of Hearts.

We’re back-to-back, bound with rope.

Alice tied us up, the little strumpet. She’s matured a bit since her days as an overly curious prepubescent girl of Lewis Carroll’s imagination. To be blunt, Alice’s bust is straining against her bustier.

The Cheshire Cat is with her, baring her teeth, wearing a pink and peach bikini top. The Mad Hatter, in fishnet and lace, smiles devilishly. She has tattoos. The Dormouse is there, too, contorting herself on the floor, skin smeared with silver body-paint.

I’m the White Rabbit.

I’m wearing a bowtie and carrying an oversized pocket watch. A black bowler hat with bunny ears sits atop my head. My face is a mess of white makeup and whiskers. And a room full of people with sketch pads are drawing pictures of me and my new friends, at Creation Cafe inside Downtown’s Buggs Temple.

The whole scene is a twisted, sexy, voyeuristic version of those famous adventures through the looking glass. It’s like the “Wicked” take on “The Wizard of Oz.” We’re not in Indy anymore.

We’re at Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School, a movement founded in Brooklyn three years ago that has since spread throughout the world, all the way to a group of women in Indianapolis. The event pitch is “cabaret meets art school.”

A posse of local performers stages the shows on a bimonthly basis. They pick a theme, construct costumes and props, and hold a set-list of poses while adoring audiences — both artist and novice — sketch them. People pay a small cover to enter, and are then entertained by a comedic hostess, burlesque performers and competitions.

You drink. You draw. And maybe you drool.

“It all started in a small neighborhood coffee shop,” said Dr. Sketchy’s international founder, Molly Crabapple. “Now it’s in 67 cities around the world, through Europe, Australia, Asia and elsewhere.”

Crabapple, an illustrator and burlesque performer, was working as an artist’s model in New York when she decided figure-drawing classes weren’t paying tribute to the models’ personalities. Dr. Sketchy shows, by contrast, pair the underground performance community with the wider artistic community.

“I think there’s always been a glamorous fantasy of what being an artist is like,” Crabapple said. “But very often you sit in a room working on your computer all day and night. I think Dr. Sketchy allowed artists to tap into what they thought their career was always going to be like.”

Crabapple now gives tips to people who want to start their own franchise, from planning a budget to advertising and booking models.

As a former leader of the Indianapolis burlesque troupe, Bottoms Up Burlesque, Christine DePriest didn’t need help booking models. She had a ready-made supply.

The 39-year-old — an administrative assistant by day, “Lady Lenore Evermore” by night — heard an interview with Crabapple on NPR in 2007, contacted her that hour and staged the first local Dr. Sketchy a few months later.

The night featured two girls dressed as old saloon-style beer wenches, playing strip poker, and the themes have varied since, from cops and robbers to Japanese schoolgirls.

DePriest has elaborate plans for the future, too, including a winter wonderland show this month featuring frosted fairies. And she would love to add a touch of circus sideshow to the proceedings, whether fire-swallowers or carnie characters.

“We are definitely looking to amp up our game,” she said.

Dan Alexander, a 34-year-old freelance illustrator from Bloomington, was so impressed with his first experience of Dr. Sketchy locally, that he decided to establish a Bloomington chapter.

The concept reminded him of a few classes at the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art in New Jersey, where models and costumes were not anathema to serious figure study. Contest rounds, like “Best use of a woodland creature,” he said, along with readings by the hostesses, add to the charm of the night.

“There’s a sense of romance,” Alexander said. “There’s also incentive to draw your best and kind of show off a little bit. But the whole point seems to get out and have a good time — all skill levels welcome.”

If burlesque were a sibling to stripping, she would be the precocious yet bashful little sister.

“Burlesque is more on the absurd side of things,” said Christie Walker, who founded Bottoms Up Burlesque five years ago and is a key member of the Dr. Sketchy group (now a separate entity). “It’s like cabaret. It’s cheeky. We’re not trying to be overtly sexual, necessarily.”

Although you might see a garter here or an occasional pastie there, elaborate design — from wardrobe to hair and makeup — is a crucial part of the process.

Walker, known to the other girls as “Lillith Centfranc,” knows this better than anyone. The 36-year-old was the dormouse at the Alice in Wonderland event, and she also carries the bulk of costuming duties.

For the upcoming winter fairies show, Jan. 17 at Locals Only, Walker is working on corsets, bustles, fairy wings, pantaloons, hats and capes. The time she volunteers for the show will exceed 60 hours, but it helps the girls put their best high heel forward.

“There’s something sexy about not taking yourself too seriously,” DePriest added. “It’s also a celebration of the female form, in all its random glory.”

In that regard, where most Dr. Sketchy events around the world are for profit, using well-paid models, the Indy franchise is volunteer-driven and raises money for charity. DePriest’s mother passed away in 2000 after a fight with breast cancer, and the group donates all proceeds to the Pink Ribbon Connection, a breast cancer support and education organization in Central Indiana.

“When you don’t know where to turn or who to talk to, they’re there,” DePriest said. “I wish that we had known about them when my mother was going through that. I almost think she would still be around.”

Standing still while people draw you is surprisingly hard.

I looked like a mime with bunny ears, so I shouldn’t have been surprised that my friends would make faces at me from the cheap seats.

I was warm and sweaty, so I also shouldn’t have been surprised when my wife, sitting on a stool by the bar, looked right at me, sipped a cool drink and raised her glass to me.

But I was surprised that bending my knee a few degrees farther than intended would cause pain and spasms over a 10-minute period. I was surprised when a fly saw my open mouth as an invitation. And I was even more surprised when I saw that same fly getting fresh with the Mad Hatter’s inner thigh.

In front of me sat more than two dozen people, young and old (leaning toward young), with sketch pads and scraps of paper. They were rubbernecking after the models and me, drawing with charcoal, markers, pens, old pencils and pastels.

In the future, DePriest plans to scan the images and put them on the Web, or auction the best for charity. But for now, most of them stay with the artists. They seemed to have quite a time sketching me, but by the end of the night I was bored. In my final pose — a 20-minute stretch with my bum on a cold concrete floor — I passed the time counting things.

Sixty-seven star-shaped lights hanging from the ceiling. Fourteen butterflies on a chandelier. Thirty-seven coffee mugs on that rack over there.

For me, Dr. Sketchy would be a one-shot deal, unlike Vera Verboten, aka Cassie Smith, a 31-year-old paralegal who finds the experience empowering.

Sporting a mane of dyed red hair, the entirety of Smith’s back is inked with a painting by a 19th century Frenchman, but her appearance belies her shy nature.

Most of the people in her office don’t know about her “alter ego.” But indulging that side of the self — the part that responds to the thrill of the stage and the camaraderie of an exotic sisterhood — is the essence of the affair. It’s a perfect girls’ night out, for audiences and performers alike.

“It’s really strange, because you think you’re going to be nervous because you’re standing in sexy lingerie, half-naked,” Smith said. “But before I go up I get this huge adrenaline rush, and with the support of the girls I know I’m going to be fine.”

Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School, Indianapolis

Where: Locals Only, 2449 E. 56th St.

When: Jan. 17; arrive at 7 p.m., show at 7:30 p.m.

Info: www.myspace.com/drsketchyindy, www.lenoreevermore.com, http://drsketchy.com or (317) 418-7425.

Theme: Winter Wonderland.

Cause: Pink Ribbon Connection.

Cost: $6.

Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School, Bloomington

Where: Rachael’s Cafe, 300 E. Third St., Bloomington.

When: 3 to 6 p.m. Feb. 14.

Info: http://drsketchysbloomington.blogspot.com or e-mail sketchysinbloomington@hotmail.com

Theme: Valentine’s Day.

Cause: The Humane Society.

Cost: $6.

Full disclosure: Indy.com style reporter Jenny Elig is a member of the Indianapolis franchise of Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School.