When I began this project I do not remember issues of gender and politics being much in the news. These days discussions about identity abound and the list of artists who have dabbled or fully embraced an alter-ego grows ever longer.
Duchamp got it started, at least for me, but way before him are numerous cultures who have had long standing traditions of genre mixing.
I never know in advance how the year and the portraits will play out. As I complete this final year and conclude my 25 year project, I’ve been thinking about passing the baton from Marc to Me and how to best represent this gesture.
As ideas bubbled up and I considered what to do, I returned to my first fascination with the portrait and the impact of Andrew Wyeth’s That Gentleman. Over the years I've written several posts about my lifelong experience with that painting.
A description of my portrait projects:
https://judithselbylang.wordpress.com/2015/01/04/portrait-projects/
History of Drawing
https://historyofdrawing.wordpress.com/2018/06/15/lesson-one/
Gratitude
https://darumaeight.wordpress.com/2013/11/23/gratitude/
On January 5, 2021 Richard helped me stage the photos but it was not until May 18 that I finally got the grid duplicate and I was ready to proceed.
Ampersand’s Claybord “archival and acid free sanded to a velvet smooth finish” 24" x 36" — sounded perfect for my interest in replicating a Wyeth-like look of his dry-brush egg tempera on gessoed board.
Unfortunately, I discovered that the surface is impossibly slick so I struggled for months to get the darks dark enough without lifting the underlying paint. When I learned that Ampersand also made Aquabord another clay substrate that absorbs watercolor like a fine paper, I ordered a board. After two failed attempts to ship the board without damage, I finally received a good board and by the first of July I got to work on this very different surface.
As I apply the paint, it feels as though another area of my brain is being activated as I am learning how to respond to the rough vs smooth surface.
It’s slow going but now it is going.
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