The greatest advantage of the self-portrait is simply that I am always available to model for myself. The difficulty lies in the question: use a mirror or a photo? I prefer the mirror, as it gives more immediacy. A photograph is a frozen moment. Looking in the mirror, I see my expression change slightly, the tilt of the head change. I see the concentration and focus -- and sometimes, the frustration, when the drawing is not working out. However, when sitting in a coffee shop with my iPad and wanting to draw, but no handy models? Taking a quick photo of myself with the iPad, then working over it in a drawing app, can be very satisfying in its own way. All of these drawings were done using the Sketch Club app for the iPad. Some were then loaded into the Camera+ app for cropping and color manipulation. And, yes, I usually edit out my wrinkles. Not out of vanity, really, but simply because I don't feel wrinkled inside.
 At first glance, these words may look like a necklace: "Don't ask me to think, if you don't want to know my thoughts." |  No one can wear a mask for very long. Really? |
 Self-Portrait as Poison Ivy -- one of Batman's foes, but also a love interest. |  Self-Portrait as Mystique -- from the X-Men comic books, and then movies. |
 | I loved comic books -- not the Archie comics, with bland Betty and Veronica. I lived in the universe of super-heroes and heroines: Superman and Supergirl. Batman and Robin. Each comic book villainness seemed conflicted to one degree of another -- Catwoman being the premier example, as both the Caped Crusader's enemy and his one true love. Some have a secret identity. Don't we all? Certainly, we all have more than one identity -- I am a wife, a mother, an artist. Sometimes one role is at the forefront, sometimes another. As women, we become adept at wearing the social face, the one we keep "just so" to meet the world. Who are we, really? Peel off the "nice" face, and see. "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts..." (Shakespeare) |
See below, Self-Portrait as a Robot in a Pink Hat
I always wear a hat. I have worn my pink hat more than any other this summer. Do you ever feel like a robot, going thru the motions, cold and numb?
I did this self-portrait, at left, two days after my mother's death, six weeks ago. Her passing filled me with both deep feeling and great numbness. At times, the two states took turns. Sometimes, they resided within me simultaneously. Perhaps one in my head and the other in my heart. We were not close, due to her severe alcoholism throughout my childhood.. A friend told me it is harder to grieve the loss of those we love and yet are not close to. Her death meant the death of a dream -- the impossible fantasy that we could someday have a normal mother-daughter relationship. She became sober in her Fifties, a remarkable achievement. But, her sobriety did not magically fill in my childhood memories with the love and nurture that were not there. I was more her mother, and my feelings for her were therefore much more maternal than filial.
Her passing has, however, helped me to see her more clearly. Yes, I had a horrible childhood. But, she had a horrific one. Realizing that terrible fact, I can give her this grace: she did better by me than was done by her.
| This blog turned very serious, as blogs often do. Let's close, not with a self-portrait, but with my mother's high school senior picture. I see aspects of myself in that face --- the same coloring, the features that are similar and yet different. I never knew this young woman. This old photograph (65 years ago or so) helps me to see that her failures as a mother do not have to be the totality of who she was, not even to me. | 
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