Sam I Am

"You use contour all around the face 
so no matter what light Lois steps in, 
she'll photograph well and she'll look good 

no matter what angle you see her in."

                                                                                                   -- Robert Williams

 

Self portrait (contour drawing) 7-10-13

"The outline of your future path already exists, 

for you created its pattern by your past."

                                                                                                       -- Sai Baba

Sometimes when I feel creatively blocked, I do blind contour drawings to get things flowing.

Blind contour drawing is an old art school technique used to train students to really see their subjects, without looking at the paper. As you draw, you keep your eyes fixed on the outline of the model or subject, meticulously tracing it with your eyes as you draw its outline on paper. You go slow and steady, and you never lift the pen or pencil from the drawing surface, so the finished image is one continuous line.

If it was made of yarn, you could pick up one end the whole thing would unravel.

The end-result is often a drawing that is not very good. But that's OK. The point of blind contour drawing isn't to produce a masterpiece. The point is to develop your drawing skills. That said, the drawings can be kind of interesting, often distorted, and I think revealing. They often uncover or magnify a little truthful something that I didn't see before.

Today's face is a blind contour drawing of myself. I drew it while looking at my face in the bathroom mirror. But when I looked at the paper, the tangle of lines looked a lot more like my son Sam than it did me.

People always comment on how much Sam looks like my husband. And he does. They share many obvious similar traits and characteristics, for sure. I have looked hard to see the resemblance between my son and me. It's there, but below the surface and a little harder to see. I loved how this contour drawing helped me uncover a striking similarity without looking for it. Without looking, period. Even though it's a rudimentary nothing special kind of drawing, it kind of magically captured a similarity that made me feel a really cool connection with my child.

It's a fusion of us both.
Sam in me.
Me in Sam.
Sam I Am, green eggs and ham.

Re-tired

"Once I worked hard and thought a lot
but I never got tired;
now I do nothing and think of nothing,
but I'm tired in body and spirit.
My conscience aches day and night."

 -- Anton Chekov, Ivanov

Self portrait 7-9-13

“Tired, 

tired with nothing, 

tired with everything, 

tired with the world’s weight 

he had never chosen to bear.”

-- F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and Damned

"There's a lot of good waiting for you on the other side of tired. 

Get yourself tired, Andre. 

That's where you're going to know yourself. 

On the other side of tired.”

-- Andre Agassi, Open

Art and soul

"You use a glass mirror to see your face; 

you use works of art to see your soul."

-- George Bernard Shaw

Self portrait 6-28-13

"Are we to paint what's on the face, what's inside the face, or what's behind it?"

-- Pablo Picasso

"Every artist dips his brush in his own soul,

and paints his own nature into his pictures."

-- Henry Ward Beecher

All the colors I am inside

 “When you become the image of your own imagination, 

it's the most powerful thing you could ever do.”

-- RuPaul

Self portrait 6-13-13

 Colors

My skin is kind of sort of brownish

Pinkish yellowish white.

My eyes are grayish blueish green,

But I’m told they look orange in the night.

My hair is reddish blondish brown,

But it’s silver when it’s wet.

And all the colors I am inside

Have not been invented yet.

-- Shel Silverstein, Where the Sidewalk Ends

Self portrait 6-13-13

"Jack planned his new face.

He made one cheek and one eye-socket white, then he rubbed red over the other half of his face 

and slashed a black bar of charcoal across from right ear to left jaw. 

He looked in the pool for his reflection, but his breathing troubled the mirror.

'Samneric. Get me a coconut. An empty one.'

He knelt, holding the shell of water. 

A rounded patch of sunlight fell on his face and a brightness appeared 

in the depths of the water. 

He looked in astonishment, no longer at himself but at an awesome stranger."

-- William Golding, Lord of the Flies

It's all about me

“Everyone lives a self-centered life ... whether its trivial like what's for breakfast, 

or more ambitious, like achieving some lofty goal, a person is constantly on her own mind.” 

-- T.M. Goeglein, Cold Fury

Self portrait 6-10-13

 “If people could see me the way I see myself -- 

if they could live in my memories -- 

would anyone love me?”

-- John Green, An Abundance of Katherines

I take pictures of myself.

A lot.

I spend literally hours each week, thinking about, capturing, looking at and manipulating my own image.

Don't think I don't think that people might think I might be a little self-centered.

A little self-focused. 

A little inward-turned.

A little self-absorbed.

A little full of myself.

A little narcissistic.

Maybe a lot.

I like to think that when I turn the lens on my own face, it is not about infatuation, or gazing at myself. I like to think it's about something deeper than that, something nobler and more constructive.

But still, I do wonder, at times, whether my affinity for self-portraiture is a healthy artistic pursuit of self-discovery, or something darker, something more like a self-addiction that will one day topple me over the bank into the lake to drown in the waters of my own reflection.

When my thinking about how I spend so much of my time and energy turns dark, I try to look on the bright side.

Like, I may be a self-addicted narcissist, but at least I'm not Amish.

I have nothing against the Amish. In fact, I admire a lot of things about the Amish. For instance, they make delicious pickles.

 It's just that if I was Amish and had this compulsion to make pictures of my own face, I'd be in a real pickle. (Although it would be a delicious Amish pickle.)

Did you now that the Amish are forbidden to pose for face-on photos? I thought it was just a "we don't use technology, and cameras are technology" thing. And I knew there was some kind of Old Testament something or other mixed in there. But I never knew the real "why" behind the rule.

According to the "Top Ten FAQ" about "The Amish" documentary on PBS's American Experience:

"Amish churches forbid individuals to pose for face-on photos or two reasons. First, they cite the second of the Bible's Ten Commandments: "Thou shalt not make… any graven image, or any likeness of any thing…." (Exodous 20:14). Second, in a communal society that values humility, posing for photos is a sign of pride that calls attention to oneself and rubs against Amish beliefs about the importance of deferring and yielding to others."

Well, then.

OK. Now I feel really selfish.

Also, I really want a pickle.

Inka dinka doo

"Something stirred beneath my skin,

some being inside I'd only suspected existed, 

demon or angel, I couldn't say.”

-- Ellen Hopkins, Burned

Self portrait 5-26-13

 “Tattoos, after all, are a passionate, 

usually doomed assertion of mastery of your own destiny,

or at least a defiant embrace of one that you cannot control."

-- Mark Simpson,  

Saint Morrissey: A Portrait of This Charming Man by an Alarming Fan

 

"Ink, a Drug."

-- Vladimir Nabokov, Bend Sinister

 

In good company

“There's such a lot of different Annes in me. 

I sometimes think that is why I'm such a troublesome person. 

If I was just the one Anne it would be ever so much more comfortable, 

but then it wouldn't be half so interesting.”

--L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

Self portrait 4-22-13

“My Personality

unfolding before you
like a Swiss Army knife.” 

-- Katerina Stoykova Klemer, The Air Around the Butterfly

Sometimes it gets a little crowded in here.
That's alright.
I happen to enjoy my own company.
I like solitude.
I am happy being with myselves.
When we are together, I don't feel alone.
Together, we are a party.
A party of one.
Maybe I should get out more.
Spend time with other people.
Be social.
Then again, maybe not.
I might miss me.