They’ve painted the walls again at school. The washroom looks different, for sure. Right away one student (I assume it was a student, not faculty or administration) wrote “I miss the free reading material.” That too was painted over quickly. But some of the previous writing still shows through the new paint and another student wrote: “The pen is mightier than the paint.” I wonder.
The quote beside the mirror at the Art College—“Watch out for the two way mirror”—reminded me so much of my pre-teen years, when I had a serious crush on a young man and almost convinced myself that he could see me when I looked in the mirror in my bedroom. So I studiously avoided looking in the mirror. And still don’t much.
But my figure drawing students have challenged me to do a self portrait. This because I told them my self-portrait stories. The one I mentioned on March 31 was a turning point in my life. Not because of the portrait but because of the paint. I discovered a love of painting. Another experience I had with drawing a portrait that was revealing to me was when I was about fifteen. There were a pair of girls, very pretty twins in our school. One of them was in my art class. As I was a very jealous little teenager, I decided I would draw her and show all her imperfections and thereby let everyone know she was not really so attractive. So I set to this task, focusing on what was not so beautiful about her. And in the end, my drawing looked exactly like her. AND, she was beautiful in my drawing. So I learned the reality of perfection, that it is not perfect.
I also saw an article in Newsweek or Time magazine a few years ago that showed photographs of famous people, like Elizabeth Taylor, Ted Kennedy and so forth. In these photos one side of the face had been duplicated onto the other, so that both sides were the same. And surprisingly it was hard to recognize the (famous) faces and also they were no longer as attractive. So once again, imperfection rules.
Nevertheless, I’ve been, finally, drawing my self portrait and it is not so painful as I expected. It’s coming together and I just might like it. I definitely like doing it.
Posted by leya at November 27, 2004 04:07 PM