A month ago, I was doing some preliminary studies for a proposed painting. I further developed the study for the face (above) and you can see that things were serious. The face didn't look like the intended subject and, in fact,...it looked lilke someone younger. Younger? Older? Ouch! What's truly serious is that very soon now, I'll be 70. The big Seven-UhOh.
As many of my friends are doing these days, my thoughts have been turning to what's gone before me, what might lie ahead, and how the heck did this happen to ME, anyway? Maybe white-whiskered Winston Churchill's words offer a hopeful perspective: "This is not the end; it is not the beginning of the end. But it is the end of the beginning."
Am I at the end of something.......or the beginning? While 70 marks the end of my seventh decade, I've decided to think of it as a launching pad into the eighth...a sunrise, you might say, an occasion for fresh starts that should be marked with ...a new self-portrait! (A woman I met a few years ago bragged that she'd followed through on her resolution to celebrate her 70th by taking part for the first time in Vancouver's New Year's Day Polar Bear Swim. Shudder. Too cold for the likes of me. I never gave a thought to that option).
I went back to one of my original and enduring favorite artists -- Degas -- and to a portrait by him that has always intrigued me, "The Collector of Prints."
Long before I'd channelled Matisse, I'd thought it would be fun to channel Degas and revamp "The Collector" as a self-portrait. Out came the pencil and ruler since, obviously, the key elements had to be scaled to the correct proportions and interrelationships. Out came some scraps of canvasboard for the can-I-really-pull-this-off studies of the tough parts. And out came the sense of adventure that would morph the somber Collector into a Going-on-70 female artist wearing the typical get-up required for her wintertime studio. (As my trusty little space heater warms up the basement room, I shed layers -- and in the course of doing this painting, I'd begun to shed them for the spring season).
The Japanese prints on The Collector's wall and the botanical (?) prints filling his desk and portfolio have been replaced with a sunrise burst of some of my other paintings, including a suggestion of some earlier self-portraits. His wall cabinet now holds a treasured old pitcher of my mother's, a favorite seashell, and...well, two small whitish blobs.
Once I'd prepared the scaled layout, things moved along surprisingly quickly (as shown here). And here's the outcome, "Seventies Sunrise" (copyright 2015):--
Just as I learned so much by channelling Matisse, I learned *big* things from Degas. His layout of big shapes against a vertical/horizontal grid appears elsewhere in his works and is a marvel. His dark-to-light tones are a whole year's worth of art school teachings. I'm quietly thrilled at the general success of "my" wall cabinet and the dark tones of the chair and table legs. And thanks to Degas, those trouser legs are among the best things I've ever done!
As for the likeness in this Selfie at Seventy, it looks more like me than like ...well (heaven forbid) Hillary Clinton. I do have a long face and thin lips -- and the turned-up collar of my fleece vest does a nice job of hiding my sagging chinline. And my smile is either huge and gummy or, as in the painting, subtly close-mouthed.
The sun is rising. I'm facing seventy and able to smile about it.
