Wednesday, September 17, 2014
Back to the Suburban Grind: Self portraiture/Selfie revelations
Back to the Suburban Grind: Self portraiture/Selfie revelations: I have been away from the blog for nearly two months. Keeping up with any regularity, any true perspective during the crazy, heady summer m...
Self portraiture/Selfie revelations
I have been away from the blog for nearly two months. Keeping up with any regularity, any true perspective during the crazy, heady summer months proved to be impossible for me. Both of my children are now enrolled in "big girl" school and save the early season calendar crunching, I have time to get back to me. I'd started this post months back when a friend on Facebook tagged me in a photo of a T-shirt that said, "Hold on, I'm taking a selfie." I do take them. Have for years before they were called "selfies" except then I was not using my iPhone or computer to take snaps, I was staring into my face in the mirror and drawing or painting. I did and continue to use self-portraiture as my medium of exploration. Whether in the visual arts, writing, acting/voice work, or dance, I have used myself in the work, sometimes as the work. I am searching, seeking, looking, longing. I don't mean it to be indulgent, snaps and right-back-atcha winks, or reverential. As an artist, I am trying to understand, define, relate, connect with the world.
I had two painting professors that I adored. One I not so secretly crushed on and the other was truly one of the best people in my life, a true, dear friend and mentor. They both guided me to portraits and self-portraiture in Western art, classical and academic as well as modern and post-modern. In both art history and my studio classes, I devoured the canon and sought answers in life painting, focusing on real life, true light, a strong degree of academic emphasis, still life, portraiture, figure drawing and painting, landscape. I admired work that was imaginative, imbued with fantasy, and whimsy but felt safer and more grounded (I am, indeed, a Capricorn) with the familiar. I can still recall the afternoon when the focus shifted and I saw myself as subject, not only as author.
These two wonderful teachers gave me permission, even demanded that I look for something in my own gaze, in the curves of my face, in the soft angles where light hit my skin, creating shadows and depth I'd never considered. I was a little embarrassed really to be staring at myself so long, gazing, demanding, imploring, seeking answers to all the questions, moving paint or charcoal, graphite or pastel to tell a story, maybe about me and maybe about something else, something more. But I did prove to be an always available subject, one whom I felt comfortable tearing to pieces, putting back together, pushing and pulling the paint in ways that were not always beautiful or safe or pleasant. I was less fearful making mistakes when using myself as model or subject, more willing to look past the surface and scratch for something else, something that transcended just that moment in time. When I failed to find what I was looking for, I could try again and again and again, the onion skin always peeling back to show me something else. I am always peeling back and looking for something else.
Other than adolescent punishing sessions of miserable inner dialogue in the bathroom mirror, I didn't like to gaze upon myself. As a teenager my skin was terrible, I wore braces for years, and frankly, any therapist of mine will tell you, it took me years (or until yesterday or the day has not yet come) to find myself appealing. Maybe it was the 80's aesthetic where I was surely not listed in the beauties table of contents or my developing self-deference to make myself smaller and more invisible, but regarding myself left me deflated. Only in dance, where I studied more the lines I was able to make with my body did I emotionally and spiritually connect with my body, my image, myself.
And now I am here. I take pictures of myself and make pictures of myself and reveal, little by little, something of myself in the writing--stories, blog posts, Things My French Husband Says About Me. To me, the portraits, the selfies, the posts, the stories, the scripts, interpretation of dance choreography helps me serve the muse. I am not the first to use the medium to explore, to discover, to share. Western art has a endless number of self-portraits and other portraits that reveal much more beyond the beautifully handled surfaces or even intentionally challenging ones. The cool part is being drawn by the image or the page into something greater than was expected. For both artist and audience there is a dialogue, language, challenge or confrontation, reassurance or connection. When I am looking, when I ask, when I cry, scream, yell, whisper to be seen or heard, it is not because I believe I am the only one to search. It is because I believe we all are. I don't believe, wouldn't dare think that only I have found myself in front of the mirror staring into my eyes, searching for my soul, marveling or mourning some experience in life. That's not my intention at all. I am saying use me. Use me to reassure yourself, to steady yourself, to believe yourself, to react, to assault, to doubt, to question, to challenge. To find solidarity or solitude. To be human in all its torment and glory.
It is humbling, sometimes crippling. It is challenging and sometimes sobering. It is lonely and sometimes isolating. It is uplifting and sometimes otherworldly. Looking at myself, in my study of just a life, mine, I hope I have found a way to connect to humanity and to the divine muse. If you cannot find a way in yourself, use me.
(c) 2014. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
I had two painting professors that I adored. One I not so secretly crushed on and the other was truly one of the best people in my life, a true, dear friend and mentor. They both guided me to portraits and self-portraiture in Western art, classical and academic as well as modern and post-modern. In both art history and my studio classes, I devoured the canon and sought answers in life painting, focusing on real life, true light, a strong degree of academic emphasis, still life, portraiture, figure drawing and painting, landscape. I admired work that was imaginative, imbued with fantasy, and whimsy but felt safer and more grounded (I am, indeed, a Capricorn) with the familiar. I can still recall the afternoon when the focus shifted and I saw myself as subject, not only as author.
These two wonderful teachers gave me permission, even demanded that I look for something in my own gaze, in the curves of my face, in the soft angles where light hit my skin, creating shadows and depth I'd never considered. I was a little embarrassed really to be staring at myself so long, gazing, demanding, imploring, seeking answers to all the questions, moving paint or charcoal, graphite or pastel to tell a story, maybe about me and maybe about something else, something more. But I did prove to be an always available subject, one whom I felt comfortable tearing to pieces, putting back together, pushing and pulling the paint in ways that were not always beautiful or safe or pleasant. I was less fearful making mistakes when using myself as model or subject, more willing to look past the surface and scratch for something else, something that transcended just that moment in time. When I failed to find what I was looking for, I could try again and again and again, the onion skin always peeling back to show me something else. I am always peeling back and looking for something else.
Other than adolescent punishing sessions of miserable inner dialogue in the bathroom mirror, I didn't like to gaze upon myself. As a teenager my skin was terrible, I wore braces for years, and frankly, any therapist of mine will tell you, it took me years (or until yesterday or the day has not yet come) to find myself appealing. Maybe it was the 80's aesthetic where I was surely not listed in the beauties table of contents or my developing self-deference to make myself smaller and more invisible, but regarding myself left me deflated. Only in dance, where I studied more the lines I was able to make with my body did I emotionally and spiritually connect with my body, my image, myself.
And now I am here. I take pictures of myself and make pictures of myself and reveal, little by little, something of myself in the writing--stories, blog posts, Things My French Husband Says About Me. To me, the portraits, the selfies, the posts, the stories, the scripts, interpretation of dance choreography helps me serve the muse. I am not the first to use the medium to explore, to discover, to share. Western art has a endless number of self-portraits and other portraits that reveal much more beyond the beautifully handled surfaces or even intentionally challenging ones. The cool part is being drawn by the image or the page into something greater than was expected. For both artist and audience there is a dialogue, language, challenge or confrontation, reassurance or connection. When I am looking, when I ask, when I cry, scream, yell, whisper to be seen or heard, it is not because I believe I am the only one to search. It is because I believe we all are. I don't believe, wouldn't dare think that only I have found myself in front of the mirror staring into my eyes, searching for my soul, marveling or mourning some experience in life. That's not my intention at all. I am saying use me. Use me to reassure yourself, to steady yourself, to believe yourself, to react, to assault, to doubt, to question, to challenge. To find solidarity or solitude. To be human in all its torment and glory.
It is humbling, sometimes crippling. It is challenging and sometimes sobering. It is lonely and sometimes isolating. It is uplifting and sometimes otherworldly. Looking at myself, in my study of just a life, mine, I hope I have found a way to connect to humanity and to the divine muse. If you cannot find a way in yourself, use me.
(c) 2014. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
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