Finding Out Who I Really Am Part Deux

The other day I wrote the first part of my self-portrait journey (here), which was a rumination on the idea of a self portrait (or real portraits) as being painfully penetrating - looking deeply at the person, warts and all.

That's a scary thought.  Most women wear makeup and use various products to hide those wrinkles, and many go to the extreme of changing those elements about them that they dislike through cosmetic surgery (as opposed to corrective surgery which fixes real problems like cleft palates and scars from injuries).  Many of us hate looking in the mirror (which, by the way, was invented by Seneca not to primp in front of but to allow for that deep, penetrating stare), which illuminate our flaws.

I don't wear make up - I haven't since my early 20s since I never learned how to use it and frankly couldn't be bothered.  I don't have a fancy hair style, and I certainly haven't done cosmetic surgery.  I also don't color my hair (though I think about it often-an auburn shade would be nice) to hide gray hairs - my attitude is that I earned those gray hairs (not that there's many of them).

I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with dying hair, pulling out stray hairs, waxing, wearing make up at all.  I just choose not to.  I present myself to the world as I am and if people don't like it, well....

So, as I said in the post, the Art Challenge assignment of doing a self-portrait was going to be difficult for me because I'm a non-painter, and I opted to use photography.  

I had always wanted to do a project in which I took different photos of myself and combined them into one.  I'm not well versed in Photoshop so I didn't know how to do it digitally, so the solution was to take photos of myself and cut them into shapes.

I've also been thinking about a project having to do with home - the apartment I lived in for 30 years off and on - and its effects on me and my life.  (let's just say it has a bad aura from bad things happening there).

I had taken photos of the house and had figured out how to change its color.  I showed the various results to friends and asked them to pick the creepiest version.  The majority ruled that this one was the best - 

Yeah, it looks pretty weird.

The original idea for the house thing was to take photos of the houses I've lived in and somehow use them in art.  Two houses are unavailable to me - the one I grew up in til age 17 (now demolished as part of 'urban redevelopment') and one I inhabited while living in Syracuse NY) - but there are 3 others I can use, including my current building.

I haven't gotten too far with that project, but I thought I could use the pink house with the self portrait somehow.  

I then started searching for photos that might work to show me through the decades.  It was harder than I thought because many photos I wanted to use were poor quality and not usable for this particular project.  I had decided to take the photos I wanted to use and enlarge them, so the resulting photos of the poor quality photos would end up badly pixelated.  

And I still hadn't decided what I wanted to do with them.

I'll tell you about that decision process soon.  (ooh, the suspense)...

later,

lin

Finding Out Who I Really Am

One of the Art Challenge Projects I dreaded was the self portrait.  Let's face it - I am not a trained artist - I don't draw or paint.  My drawings tend to be stick figures and my paintings of faces look like, well, messes.

And I didn't want to do a selfie, either.

About self-portaits, Peter Conrad wrote a review in 2014 of the book Self Portrait - A Cultural History by James Hall, in which he also pondered the importance of self portraits as a psychological journey.  He wrote that selfies basically look the same - identical poses, look-alike grins, taken only to mark an occasion or for self-aggrandizement. 

 Which was something I noticed on Thursday while I was waiting for a bus home.  Two women were entertaining themselves at the stop by taking constant photos of each other on a cell phone as each posed in increasingly suggestive poses.  Their antics were cheered on by the guys waiting at the bus stop, as well as guys driving by.  

Anyway, Hall says in his book that a painted self portrait is a sort of surgical penetration, an intense study while photographed portraits are instantaneous and ephemeral, skin deep in fact.  I would disagree with this, at least in the case of portrait photography done by the truly great photographers.  

The portraits done by Dorothea Lange, for example, are searing looks into the sitter's soul.

Who can forget Diane Arbus' photo of Germaine Greer, or her photos of circus people?

And of course Yousef Karsh's photographs of Jessye Norman, the great soprano

These photos really do get to the heart of their subjects.  I cannot call them instantaneous and ephemeral.

Hall sees early self-portraiture as reflexes of Christian conscience, and a way of checking that the artist is still here, not just a figment of his or her imagination.  The great artists painted their portraits with all the warts and wrinkles, like this one by Rembrandt

and Gustave Courbet

Contemporary self-portraiture in his eyes, however, is but a means of self-promotion, not self-review.

In light of all of this, I really wanted my self-portrait to serve as a way to review my life and the things that have created ME.  

And because I am, again, not trained to paint or draw myself (or anything else), I have to use photography.

I'll show you what I did soon.  

But the next time you see a painted self-portrait, as opposed to the ubiquitous selfie found on FB, Twitter or Instagram, appreciate the amount of time and skill it took to create that intense look into the soul.  I know I will.

later,
lin