Yesterday while moving boxes around the basement AGAIN, I got the opportunity to open boxes that I packed two years ago. Yay. It was like Christmas but only if the gifts were stuff I should have just thrown away instead of packing them, shipping them across the country and then storing them in the basement for two years occasionally moving them about from corner to corner. Anyway, while unearthing the mounds of crap I thought worth keeping, I found my weird version of The Painting of Dorian Grey. Backstory: at some point in my late 20’s our family friend who is an artist asked me for a headshot so that she could paint a picture of me for my mother. I picked through the many headshots I’d taken over the years and found a somewhat commercial shot that a friend’s husband had taken of me. It wasn’t a great shot but it was the only somewhat current color headshot I had so I gave it to her and I promptly forgot about the whole thing. Two years later at Christmas, I received a large package from the artist and this painting was in the package - Yup. This is a painting that looks vaguely like me but not really at all. When I first opened it, we all stood around and looked at it for quite a while, trying to figure out what was wrong with it. Was it the eyes or the cheeks or the neck or... It took a while but I think what she did is combine my features with my mother’s and then painted what she thought we might look like if we were one of those gone missing posters – and she painted it with one eye closed. With the canvas set on an angle. While totally drunk. It’s bizarre to stare at something that should be a replica of yourself and not see yourself. And then someone turned the painting upside down AND IT LOOKED LIKE ME! SEE!!! Well, not exactly like me but so much more like me that it does right-side up. The lower face fills out and the shoulders don't look as off. And the eyes - well, they still follow you wherever you are in the room but they look less serial killer upside down.
Now I think I understand why my life has been so wonky; my version of The Picture of Dorian Gray is literally not right in the head! It explains so much about the wackiness that is my path of thinking. This wonder of ART has been in storage of some kind or another since I got it in 2002 but I'm now totally going to hang it in my studio/office space. Upside down. After I submit my application to Husband and get his permission to put a nail in his pretty wall, that is. I’m curious to see if it changes things – for better or for worse. If anything, this little bit of narcissism on my wall is bound to be a conversation starter. And it's a much more appropriate picture than the one of my womb... or so Husband tells me.
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AuthorMy name is ej. I'm a girl. I say that because with the short hair and the short initials, folks aren't always sure. More brilliant insights to who I am in About me Archives
April 2019
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