“There is no fixed, true and real person inside of you or me, precisely because being a person necessarily implies becoming a person, being in process”.
– John Powell
I created my first self-portrait when I was, I think, eleven. Or twelve. I am not sure. But I remember being stuck at home sick with some kind of flu or something, bored. I couldn’t go to my art classes. So I picked up the pencil and the mirror and created the picture of self, dark circles under my eyes, braids and sad face. I don’t know where it is now but I have a perfect picture in my mind of how it looked like, and the resemblance was rather striking. But it is not the resemblance I remember most, it is the feeling of trying to record who I was at that point, inside. Soul-searching at eleven. Or twelve, I can’t say for sure.
All these years later, I don’t draw or paint as much as I take pictures now. I am not a stranger to the concept of photographic self-portraits either. But one day I found Gail Werner’s blog and got so very inspired by her amazingness that I had to do the same thing she does. That girl is mind-blowingly gifted. Gail takes a self-portrait a month. I have committed to doing exactly the same in 2012. Gail reminds me of a dear childhood friend with whom I spent many happy hours drawing and painting and creating together at our art school. Thank you Gail, for being you.
I know it is already February (well, soon it will be almost March…) but here is my January self-portrait.
January was creative. January was productive. I spent many hours in January dreaming and writing. It was also about lists. Mostly lists of goals. Lists are good.
Anyway, here I am, capturing my dreams and putting them on paper, back in January 2012.
February self-portrait is coming very soon, and I promise to make it a real February one, not the “Oh I haven’t noticed it’s already March but here we go” one.
Take care.
[…] wrote my goals in January. I started making them real in February. I knew what the road ahead was going to be like […]