Selves.
I did most of my illustration work (on paper) back in the 70s. I have said that before but how long ago that actually is now.
This one is rather realistic. Like a person. Ha!
I can say it looks like me then, with my wild hair. Drawn from a photo my brother took, I should find that. Some where in NYC. I remember I was wearing a handwoven vest and my grandmother's old fur coat. What a time.
I published a lot of self portraits on paper the years. On the web. But without their stories. I pulled most of them from Flickr. I am purging slowly.
I am ready to organize my paper work in some new form. Give them new context...as what I will call The Real Journal. Funny, I never really dated any of them. Each time I try to remember, it's a different order. I note here, to my current self, there is cloth here.
Stray Selves, they keep surfacing. What if everything we do, or create, is in some way a self portrait? Form is temporary.
… how long ago. When my friend told her new students about her 30 years of nursing, one exclaimed “You were a nurse in the last century? ” 😂
Ha!
I’m waiting for the story of the little red bug……
I almost put eyes on it.
It took me halfway through the comments for that last question to sink in. My gut reaction then was “Spastic!” Everything I do seems to be in fits and starts and irregular, spirally cycles.
Love seeing your self portrait. I often wonder when I see old pictures of people “Where did that person go?” Because, even if someone hasn’t particularly changed, she isn’t exactly the same person who’s in the picture.
And I LOVE your hair. I never appreciated that my flat, straight hair was the envy of the 60s. I have to work at the tousled, wild curls I like.
I spent years trying to get flat straight hair. Suddenly I let go and it sprung forth yelling Yay!
spastic is a special dance, the energy in it is astounding to me.
Very recognizable! Spastic: makes me think of the song “spasticus artisticus” a song by Ian Dury… good ol’ punk.
HA
Self portrait I think about that often as I find recurring color combinations, stitched used, shapes preferred, and all ways the fascination with small. Taken altogether, it does seem like me😊
Exactly!
the self to which i relate most often is a 12 year old. i don’t feel older. just “bigger”… love all your weavings, but those tiny ones have a special place in my heart.
Just a few threads holding together bring me joy.
Smiling at the younger view and the now. Liking how the cutting out suggests a moon behind you and how small marks (& weavings) can say so much. So glad you’re all of the you’s.
I guess we are a patchwork, in perspective.
Oh so true
Would love to see them all and I definitely knew that was you. Somewhere along the way, I decided dating writing exercises mattered. Now I do it as a matter of course.
only the blog is dated, I am interested now how I will remember all the loose pages, what stories will arise.
I used to do a lot of journaling in books I made from scratch, filled with words and drawings and doodles. Then I met you and my journaling is all in stitch, no more books, no more words. I do my “morning pages” (and evening ones too) but no one can read them, but they can be held and felt. Self portraits….. love that idea.
great conversation today.
I love this — what you just wrote and what you do!
I guess I have been doing the same for many many years, but I can’t say I ever really kept an ongoing consistent journal, just bits of this and that thrown into a box. I guess the blog is the only real ongoing time stamped journal I have.
I have never done self-portraits before this year, or really looked at myself in the mirror beside a quick, is it straight? I wonder what changed. I put it down to getting old-er, everything is er these days.
Ha, er, so true, except young …
Gotta love the ‘er’!
Right?
Self expression, self portrait — always changing as we do…. Illuminating both to look back at who we were & to see who we are in the current moment, in our current creating….
yes, illuminating!
I bet you were a real pistol back in those days! Would love to see some pics of you back when.
And I remember sneaking out of the house in my moms wool coat with a fur collar. LOVED that coat, still have it and wear it!
Boxes of self stored at the moment. I do enjoy rummaging through them. So many memories.
❤️
I have stories.
I just quick glanced…I’ll be back tonight…
See ya!
Enjoyed the comments, the triple treat in the first pic and weaving…barely holding it together. xo
An exercise in alignment
My first thought was why did she stop … this illustration is fantastic. But very quickly I thought had you not taken a new path we never would have met. Thank you for sharing this!!
Let’s consider it a loooong pause!😂
Always felt that everything I made was self-portrait…showed who and what I am and none of it showed human form. photos now show my long shadow on the ground. I love this discussion.
we can be, i think, all forms.
Love your drawings! Can’t wait to see more 💙
archeology…
Laughing…that’s my hair right now. It really only does wild. 🙂 Yes, I think everything is a self portrait. I read somewhere recently (don’t remember where) that we draw not to represent things but to better understand what we are drawing. Thinking a lot about that.
or maybe to understandwhat we are thinking about what we are drawing.
A drawing! It’s so realistic and devine. Even with stitching you makes faces so alive! 💞
I look at this and yes, it’s me! I love faces. Even this old one, time for new drawings.
once you manage to organize your paperwork let me know how, I have attempted this so many times and I keep getting distracted by my old me……
I love your illustration-collage
I will do a segment in the Zone. It is so personal really.
It is so so confusing.
Love the thought of all our creations are a type of self-portrait! Certainly portraits of self-expressing self.
I’ve had to accept my self expression as random play.
Superb collage!
self expressing self, a sense of layers there.
That thought has struck a chord; everything we think, do, create is a form of self, and all form is temporary.
In this way, change is good.
Moving onward!
Love your little self-portrait, I have some of mine in sketchbooks from long ago (late 70s, very early 80s, I think)
Now I tend to draw court jesters– could be the same thing, yes!? Ha!!
makes you think right? Even a momentary impression that someone might come away with leave a picture in their mind.
I have some jesters too! Will dig them up…
Oooo! I’d love to see….I’ll dig up an old self-portrait…. 😁
Omg! That looks like my hair in the 70’s!!!!
Wouldn’t know it today..but yes!!
Wild hair was so easy !
That’s a lovely self portrait.
Do you think the ‘look’ in the eyes tend to stay somewhat the same …despite time, all the what nots, and changes in form that happen in all our lives?
I wonder…
I think eyes change with seeing…
I think eyes change with experience.
Seeing is that, yes, not just looking…
Like fingerprints
anything we touch