According to my roommate, "long pause... It is very Dickensian." According to a classmate, it is very "Norman Rockwell." I am not sure what it is but I sure did learn a lot staring at myself for a few days and trying to see myself. I see here and there where it does not resemble me, but when I stare at it, I still get the feeling that it is me staring back. I listened to the entire symphonies of Gustav Mahler, all nine of them, while painting it. Sometimes I was actually painting, sometimes I was wiping out everything I had just spent a good time painting, and sometimes I was just staring back at myself and listening to Mahler. Mahler holds a private meaning for me. But I think in this process, of forcing myself to listen again to his music, it slowly became simply music again; powerful, strange, and beautiful.
(me with my self-portrait, a bit redundant I know, took this for my mom!)
(our class paintings of the models, mine is a profile of Demetri, below the lovely painting of a woman reading)
Our show was a success. I know this by the crowd of people, thick enough that it was difficult to part one's way through and actually see the art. Also, the nice comments I received, from my peers and strangers alike, on my "honorable mention," blue stickered self-portrait. So many of the paintings were beautifully executed and all were so very different. I think one of the most interesting things about a class show is that everyone can have the same model but no one will have the same work. And Lastly I know it was a success because the wine was gone in five minutes.
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