SELF-PORTRAIT REVELATIONS


Patience and perseverance:  

The little mouse wants the Bleu d'Auvergne cheese that sits on a table in the other room.  
Its perfume is seductive.  He gnaws and scratches at the big wooden door until he makes a tiny hole that he can squeeze through.  

He scampers up the leg of the table and reaches the cheese. Oh rapture and joy, he rubs his fur in it, pokes his nose here and there, and takes a vaporous bath in the aroma of mold before sinking his tiny buck teeth into blue nirvana.


I tend to express my state of mind rather than a perfect likeness in self-portraits. Over the weekend, I ran across a few that I drew or painted long, long ago while studying at art school and later at university for my B.F.A.  

Producing work in an academic setting was terribly exciting because professors had us in a forced exploration hold. Lots was going on at the same time: my hormones were raging and I was living on very little money, eating inexpensive but proteinaceous chicken hearts, liver and gizzards to keep my energy up.

I held a full time job during most of my studies. The phone company I worked for granted me a couple of "leaves of absence", which allowed me to finish two years full time, but it would take another five years to complete my degree on a part time basis. Many doubted I would ever obtain it under these conditions but I was determined to succeed.   

When I came upon this self-portrait done during my studies, it made my heart flip. Memories flooded over me, nothing specific really, mostly feelings from way back when. The drawing is busy, detailed, and my expression is incredibly sad. 

I thought it might be time to plaster a smile on this face but it wasn't.  You can't change the past...

 

 ...you can however, update to 2012 by adding a wrinkle or two or three....


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