HOW YA LIKE ME NOW?
I have started a new self-portrait. I try to make myself do one annually, but some years I avoid the whole self-reflective process. Today I was thinking of some of the most famous self-portraits I have seen. Frida Kahlo, Vincent VanGogh, Chuck Close… It is no coincidence that these three artists have greatly influenced my portraits.
The thing about a self-portrait is that it makes you look at yourself if a different way. I may put on make-up every day (okay, maybe not every day in the summer), and it makes me realize that looking in a mirror is different from looking at a photograph. It is sort of the same thing as hearing your voice in person as compared as to hearing a recording of your voice. It can be almost unrecognizable! For example, one day I called my house to talk to my husband and when he was not there, I left a generic message on the answering machine. Something along the lines of, “Hi. It’s me. I’ll call back later.” Now, I am a little embarrassed to admit that later that day when I came home and played the message on the machine, for a brief moment I did not recognize my own voice and thought for just a moment that my daughter had called. This can be attributed to the fact that I am a little goofy, that my voice sounds a whole lot like my daughter’s voice, and that the voice one hears in a recording is just different from the voice that resonates out of one’s own head. And the whole thing reminds me of how many ways I am out of touch with my true self.
I don’t know why artists tend to recreate themselves. I do know that I have never painted a self-portrait with the intention of selling it. And yet, with the exception of one self-portrait that my husband wanted to keep, I have sold all of the ones I have painted. Perhaps artists paint themselves because the subject is readily available. Perhaps it is due to vanity. Perhaps it is a form of soul searching. My instincts lean toward the latter.
My face has changed a lot in the ten years that I have been painting. I jokingly told my daughters one day recently that my face is collapsing. But really, it was no joke. The plump parts that once made my cheeks perky and my face heart shaped have begun to slump. I can only imagine them going a bit further south each day, moving steadily and irretrievably toward the land of Jowldom.
As an artist I always appreciated a beautiful face. As a fifty-year-old woman, I am learning to appreciate the marks life leaves on one’s countenance. When I look at my face these days, I see a strong resemblance to my mother. My relationship with Mamma was not always ideal. As a writer I have tapped into this vein repeatedly. As an artist I am just beginning to do the same thing. When I notice that my mouth is shaped somewhat like hers, I remind myself not to say hurtful things to people. When I realize that my eyes are large like hers, I realize that in many ways I am still an innocent. And as I have learned to be a little gentler with myself, I have learned also to cut my mother a little slack.
A few years ago I started a series of poems titled Conversations with the Virgin. Of course, it goes without saying that these poems are a spiritual exploration, but they are also an attempt to reconcile my negative feelings for my mother with the need to embrace my own femininity. The two poems below are from this series:
FULL PARDON
Lady of Luminous Laughter,
I know you look down on me
and wonder at my stupidity,
that you must marvel at my inability
to appreciate the wonder that saturates my life.
Prone to melancholy, sometimes
I pretend that my tears are born of glee
and that the sudden lurching snap
that jerks me toward the earth’s hot core
is natural, even desirable.
Sometimes I confuse you
with the young Cambodian woman
who runs the cash register at the liquor store,
so determined to pull from me
some detail of my day, yet always willing
to pay me for my reluctance
with patience
with her boundless exuberance,
with her predictable reassurance,
with these four simple words, “You are so beautiful!”
Sometimes you remind me of my friend Kat,
(You know, the one with the tumor?)
and the way she looked at me that day
and how with a smile that lifted only
the left side of her face, she said simply,
“You have a beautiful life.”
Sometimes my face turns hot
and my shame grows unchecked,
blossoming uninhibited in my chest
until almost no oxygen remains and
all I can think is that I should have
visited Mamma before she died.
Then, I imagine you there, in that otherworldly place,
with your arms crossed gently over your breast,
holding your veil, soft against your face
and floating toward the ceiling
where, with only the occasional silent smile,
you rain peace and understanding from the rafters.
AND BY THE FACT ITSELF
Lady, my thoughts of you are as thin
as the skin on the back of my hands.
The star in my lucid dreams you are
and it seems that I can’t even take a phone message
without automatically adding a reference to you.
Holy Mother, I once read
that those wishing to control dreams
should spend their last minutes of life
each night studying the backs of their hands. You see,
and I know you do, that our hands are the things
we see more than others,
more than other objects,
more than other expressions, digressions…
more than thoughts throughout our waking sessions.
Ip
so
fact
o
when we see them in our sleep,
our deep subconscious minds design scenarios
in which they’re able to function. And so
sound dreamers function in their sleep.
But Lady, my eyes weep tears of blood
as slumber goes
the way of wonder,
the way of distant thunder born of memory,
the way that gender
only begins to explain
the differences between our legs, and so we run
and run and run like dogs asleep,
and never still, we keep
the sacred pacts of childhood.
Today I look at my face
and I see your smile.
