Witness the Small Life – Self-Interest

New year, new semester, new entry! Huzzah to the jugs of coffee, days of work, and more hours of sunshine to come our way. Although we’re barely a full week into classes, it already feels like a semester to rival all others.

This week I’ve been thinking a lot about the concept and physicality of self. In my figure drawing class this semester we have a self portrait to do every week, a new version of ourselves frozen in the moment we create them. As someone who started as a self-taught artist in middle school, I’ve always used myself as a model in my artwork. It’s the easiest reference to use, right at the ready as long as you have a phone or a mirror. What started just as studies of human anatomy started to grow into modes of self-expression. I started to draw myself not just as what I saw but as what I wanted to see. Somebody confident, or witty, and especially self-assured. I dreamed up fantastical stories and places that I would put myself in as if I always existed there. An ideal within a dream that took place between the covers of my sketchbook. Then, in high school, I decided to move beyond the literal and into the conceptual. For my AP art classes my upperclassman years I explored the events, memories, and ideas that shaped me throughout my youth. From identity, to nostalgia, to crisis I captured it through the explosion of visual language that I started to hone in my teenagedom. It was Covid, of course, so being cooped up inside meant I spent a lot of time with myself, whether I liked it or not. This lead to the creation of self-portraits in forms of crochet sweaters, clay sculptures, a pair of junk earrings–whatever I could get my hands on really . The expansion of self-portraiture that I created in this time pushed not only my perception of self but my understanding of how I could really capture that version of self beyond what is there. Now in college I’ve turned back to traditional self-portraits with a newfound appreciation. I’ve learned how a drawing of your face is more than just your face, it exists as a record of every decision made to create that face. Every line of shadow and scratch of contour is an example of our very impact of choice onto that page. As an artist, and as a person really, every thing I do is influenced by who I am. The idea of self and identity are always shifting and transforming that I find myself fascinated by the very concept (which is absolutely why I have a billion of drawings of myself). I think it’s funny to say I love drawing myself as both a slightly conceited thing and a truly passionate declaration. Through the creation of my self-portraits throughout the years I’ve been able to confront who I am and grow so much of my self-love from those moments of confrontation. To see, create, and capture is to love and how wonderful is to do that through the practice of self-portraits.

To take into our next week:

Ins: Clogs (always!!), sunglasses, oolong tea, accents, cheesy soup, practicing an early bird routine, medium roast coffee, dressing up in costume.

Outs: Sour tomatoes, sore feet, undercooked onions, objectively bad jokes, character assassinations for the sake of plot, not doing wrist stretches, spoiled milk.

Here’s to another lovely year together and to even more witnessing of the small life all around us 😀