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"Self-appreciation" (2009) size: 42 x 60cm
Although we both live in the same city, I've never met with the subject of this portrait in person; both the sitting and the post-portrait consultation took place as a Skype voice-call. Here are some of the results...
This portrait is titled as it is largely because of the central character... the vocalizing, bare WOMAN WITH ANIMAL HEADGEAR. She references a herb-filled doll called "Self-appreciation" that Mae acquired from a local artisan (complete with a similar resplendent, furry headpiece). Mae particularly identified with the theatrical characters in the middle ground. Although I knew that she was employed by a local theatre company, I didn't know what she did there. It turns out that she's a costume designer and a playwright. The inclusion of the animal imagery (and puppets, just left of centre) references the fact that she loves to write plays/stories with them as characters... "I use animals and puppets in my plays because, like fables, even though I am telling very human stories, they allow me to be a bit broader with the humour, a bit larger than life in the scale of the events. For some reason I've found this to engage people in a way that surprises them, the morals catch them unaware."
Mae said that the WADING FIGURES in the left side of the pool are representative of herself (the DROWNING GIRL, closest) and her family; she confided that she often felt like she was being overwhelmed by their concerns and dramas. In this respect, she often shows less concern for herself and her own needs (thus the need for 'self-appreciation' becomes relevant). As a hopeful image, the volcano in her pool is a metaphor for the formation of new landscape... an island where the drowning figure could find respite.
Just behind her family in the pool is an image of Mae as an ADOLESCENT GIRL; her pose appears relaxed, but her eyes give her an expression of being somewhat overwhelmed still. Slightly up and to her right is a DANCING GIRL with ruffles on her dress. Although she appears happier, she has a bit of that same look in her eyes; she represents the present-day Mae. Up and to the right again is the future version... a smiling, serene-looking DIVA... held up by supportive hands, adored, successful. True to her vocation as a costume designer, Mae poignantly described each character by referencing their attire:
"I would say the young girl wants to get dressed up, but is feeling overwhelmed and naked (she's still pretty close to her overwhelming family in that pool too). The older girl is happy to be dressed up, but has chosen a frilly dress that is a bit high maintenance and maybe a bit big for her - she hasn't quite nailed down a style that makes her feel pretty and comfortable, and then there is this more mature Diva, who has a more contented and positive gaze, and even though her dress seems quite over-the-top in terms of the flared mermaid skirt (she is a Diva after all), it has a more elegant and classic feel to it - she's clearly at home in her own skin."
Perhaps the most prominent character is a representation of the subject as a BRIDE (immediate foreground). Apparently - just a half-hour prior to the sitting - Mae had broken up with someone she thought she might marry. She's drawn as a cartooney cut-out because she had been picturing herself as a bride; she was dressing an image of herself perhaps in the same way you might dress a child's paper cut-out, complete with an elegant dress and a pretty bouquet. Although the figure herself is quite cartooney, her bouquet is quite realistic. The eyes are drawn as blank, signifying that the vision wasn't complete; it also means that she can't see how beautiful her bouquet is. Have I mentioned often enough that the title of this portrait is "Self-appreciation"? (couldn't hurt to say it once more!)
"Advocate" (2008) size: 42 x 60cm
Upon starting this portrait, it appeared that there were to be two distinct halves: forms on the right side suggested to me the subject and her family; the left side I had to draw automatically, as I couldn't make anything out at first. Here are some of the post-portrait consultation results:
(from foreground, counter-clockwise)
The MAIN CHARACTER sits in 'the big chair'. She's a theatre's GM. While she is feminine (as suggested by her shapely legs and the flower in her hair), she is very mindful that being a woman in such an elevated position has certain gender-cultural expectations, and requires an attention to image; in that respect, she is depicted wearing an over-large shirt that conceals her feminine physique.
The mask that she wears on her head, although somewhat rabbit-like, has an aggressive quality to it. Her determined nature as an arts advocate she carries from the teachings of her father (represented by the BULLDOG): "His bulldog attitude - and mine - comes out of a sense of fairness, not a sense of entitlement; [but that] you need to do the right thing, and doing the right thing is very, very critical to your well-being and everyone else's well-being." Speaking further about the BULLDOG image representation of her father: "That's why it's not vicious; it's calm, but it's very sure, it's very solid, very grounded."
Personally, I found her to be inspiring and empowering; this aspect of her nature is represented by the fact that her character is offering water to the next person to sit in the bench beside her. She offers to them what she thirsts for herself.
SPECTACLED CHARACTER WITH DOG: "I can't believe you drew my husband! No, seriously, he has a flip in his hair just like that that we can't tame, and [those are] his glasses, and that's his nose, and that's his mouth, his lips... that's wild!"
The RIGHT HAND (on the far left of the portrait) holds a ring that I suggested was made of metal/brass. That ring and the ones below it are metaphorical brass rings that she has accumulated through her advocacy efforts. Tied into them is a representation of an S.O.S. (with what she recognized as a baby-rattle making up the 'O'); although she and her husband decided not to have children of their own, they are caring for two children who were in serious need of a safe home.
I normally paint the outside edge of the portrait with a colour that I choose intuitively. For this portrait I chose "Tropic Bay Blue". The relevance of this colour choice became obvious when she told me that she and her family vacation in Hawaii. Away from work, her character's (designer) shoe no longer needs to cover her RIGHT FOOT, the toes of which are poking out of the water.
"Petra" (2008) size: 24 x 31cm
Petra is a native of Kalinga Province, Philippines. Her people had traditionally been head-hunters. A lot of her portrait is descriptive of the contrast between her people's cultural traditions and beliefs, and her western education (her youth at a religious-run orphanage, and her later studies in the field of nursing). Here are some of the results from the post-portrait consultation (counter-clockwise, starting with the two main figures)...
The two MAIN FIGURES in this portrait (slightly down from centre) represent Petra and her husband David. She is represented as a figure of significant stature, bringing David into her Philippine villages. She said jokingly, "I had to make sure that David [didn't] break any protocol, otherwise his head would have been gone!" Through Petra's assistance as a go-between, David was granted access and gained her people's trust. Together they started IAT (The International Association for Transformation). Her character's size is symbolic of the importance of her role in this respect.
The HERBS in her left hand and the size of her character both reference a family tradition of healing. Her great-grandmother was a famous healer; Petra related to me that upon taking a specific herb, "her force was the force of a giant". The cup in her right hand references her training in western medicine; it is at once a vessel to receive, and a vessel with which to offer knowledge and sustenance.
I was at first confused by the appearance of the GORILLA character, since gorillas did not exist where she grew up. It turns out that it is a reference to the discrimination she endured (especially during her early years). It symbolizes how some people looked at her - as if she were a primitive animal, "yet I had the strength like him". She said that rather than leaving her feeling defeated, it brought out the warrior in her.
The BINOCULARS are positioned above a face that looks very similar to that of Petra herself. It is not over her eyes, but over her mind; she finds herself always looking ahead, "envisioning a better world than this one".
At the top of the picture, an ALTAR-BOY figure with an upraised arm runs towards us. Petra recognized him as John, one of the other orphans. John "...was suspected as the one who was stealing rabbits in the orphanage." Sadly, because of the accusations placed upon him - especially from the sisters running the orphanage - he took his own life. John had been especially close to another young orphan called Maggie. One day Maggie was unconscious on the floor, and everyone was around her trying to revive her. She started speaking, not with her own voice, but with John's: "He spoke through Maggie saying to us - 'cause we were all there, even the nuns [were] there - he was saying that he is not the one who got the rabbits, it was one of the local boys. So Mother Teresa told the police to investigate [to see] if that was true, and it was true." It was because of this experience that she began to value her people's culture and beliefs, as compared to what the church was teaching her.
The HORNED ANIMAL (with its eye looking fearfully at the figure with a spear beside it) is a carabao being sacrificed. Carabao would be sacrificed at important events such as a death, a wedding celebration, or a peace pact between two tribes. Since this image is in such close proximity to the events involving John and Maggie, I can't help but think that it represents an exalting of what appears to have been a personal rite of passage for Petra.
Through her experiences, Petra developed a deep interest in her traditional heritage (one of her dreams is for a mini-museum at her Philippine home). What appear to be metal 'SHACKLES' Petra identified as "kalibajan" (sp?). They were traditional ornamentation that went around the wrists and necks of the men. Just beneath the kalibajan at left I pointed out a (very faint) image of a CHAIR that I was curious about. Petra clarified for me: "This is how our people in the olden days sit up the dead". They sit the figure up on a wooden chair, along with rice and "paraphernalia, burial blanket, and beads... to show that they are dignified when they die... a re-enacting [of] who he is, who he was". When she was last visiting, she told her uncle (who had been a warrior), "Don't die yet. When you die, it should be when I come back so that I can document the ritual." Unfortunately, he passed away before she could return.
The BOY in the immediate foreground-right represents her (third) son. She describes him as charming, sociable and gentle, yet physical and warrior-like. He holds a sword and a shield. He rides a skateboard - an obvious symbol of western youth culture. He has two heads; he is at once a young man, and a (spiritual) cat-like visage. She commented that - while he appreciates his ancestry - he appears as somewhat scattered, riding over his own heart and images of their shared traditional culture.
"Gemini" (2008) size: 60 x 42cm
Although he's become a dear friend since, this subject was essentially a stranger to me at the time of his portrait. Here are some of the initial post-portrait consultation results...
I love the feeling I get when - at first glance - the subject exclaims, "I feel as though I know these people!"
The subject immediately recognized the dualities present: the masked figure and rattle-head, the couple, the two boats; he informed me that this made so much sense considering he is a Gemini. "I am always stuck between the aged person in me that is lost, that is trying to grasp onto that which will never be gained again (a reference to a physical disease he has that the WITCH DOCTOR is fighting), and the pursuit of beauty (portrayed as the WOMAN IN THE BOAT)."
He expressed a deep affinity for keys, boats and water, and that he had worn a beard for years and years, "...and there it is!"
I feel that the subject interpreted the portrait better than I ever could by referencing the MALE IN THE BOAT: "This figure says for me: if I give up on beauty or the pursuit of discovering all these dimensionalities of myself, you see..?.. the light and the dark, ...the love and the fear, ...right there! The fear is in the background. I see the light. So my interpretation of my life as I see it here is an invitation to continue the journey - not using binary thinking and saying: is it fear that is motivating me, is it love that is motivating me - but just to be conscious [of] that they're both at work, that I have choice as to whether I want the light, or if I'm just going to go back into the darkness. Beautiful!"
"Mission" (2008) size: 31 x 24cm
...information withheld at subject's request...
"Jenny's Float" (2006) size: 42 x 60cm
some of the post-portrait consultation results:
FERRET: the subject recognized this figure as her mother, who had stifled her in her youth (as she's doing to the piggie here), and whose favourite descriptions of Jenny and her sister were fat, stupid and useless (though they were none of these things). The ferret has placed her hand over the little piggy's mouth to stop her from freely expressing herself.
TRUNCATED MAN: when interpreting the portrait for the subject initially, I conveyed the impression that I felt this character was an English man with brown eyes. I was told by the subject that he looked like her father (who had brown eyes); he had died when she was twelve years old. I believe he was represented with truncated arms because he could no longer affect anything in the physical world, although the subject believed he was still with her in many ways.
SMALL CAT: the subject believed this was her young cat that she had recently had put down. The memory of him was still very much present in her life and in her thoughts.
These characters represent aspects of the subject that she takes with her. I thought it significant to convey the feeling that her float seemed to be made of concrete: it's very solid, yet she is always scared that it won't continue to float, even as it does so. I also found it interesting that although she is stifled, it is as if her protectors speak for her, watching out for her and for any dangers that lie ahead.
David J. Nagy
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