Mara's Creativity Blog

Countdown. The next five weeks are going to be really hectic. Funding was approved to launch our first exhibition of the Telling My Story artwork shown earlier in this blog and I've got lots to do. Of course, so do my colleagues. And they've been great at making sure I get what I need in order to get the job done. As things are finished, I'll post some proofs here. For instance, here is the first draft of the type treatment for the exhibition. It's a looonnnggg title. So I've attempted to break it down. It will go through some revisions. But you can at least get the gist of it, along with the actual name of the show here.











The exhibit will be part of a forum that will all be held the evening of June 13, 2006 at the Blue Cross/Blue Shield headquarters in Detroit, Michigan. The forum will be focusing on the research by two Wayne State University researchers and their team on intentional community and the issues of homelessness and recovery.

In anycase, I'll keep you posted.

Meanwhile, be sure to check out the podcast at www.marasblog.com

Thanks!

I've added a new podcast (using iWeb), that includes some RSS Feed podcasts and video, at the following link: Mara's Podcast Check there for more recent bloggin... and... Thanks! ~ mjf, 4/8/06


Mara's Podcast

The start of the new semester put me on a different course for awhile, literally, and I found myself heading the Art Department on an interim basis this semester with many new tasks to fulfill as the semester began. On top of that, I had already agreed to re-install my MFA exhibition titled "Se(a) Crossings: Time in the midst of the pressures of chaos" in the Mott Fine Arts Gallery, located in the Visual Arts & Design Center. This required having to redesign the "floor poem" and reprint it to fit the new 19x30 ft space. The original installation at Kresge Art Museum fit into an 18x18 ft corner. The new installation was made more dramatic by the addition of a black curtain that redirected visitors into the gallery from the door entry. I believe the results were much better than even the original exhibition. You can see photos of "Se(a) Crossings, v2" online and judge for yourself.

My distractions in recreating and reinstalling Sea Crossings served as an appropriate reframing of my thoughts as I tried to prepare for developing Dona's portrait, the eighth and final one in the "Telling My Story" project. These two-dimensional narrative conceptual portraits are really just the beginning of what will hopefully become another multimedia installation akin to Se(a) Crossings, in that it should immerse the visitor in the journey of recovery from homelessness. However, the 2D portraits are necessary for developing the framework for a variety of applications, from publications to gallery installations to educational programs.

Dona is an artist in her own right. A poet, a visual artist, a singer and an actress. Of all of the women I interviewed, she seems to be the most "healed" and most clear in her understanding of her path in life and the brilliance that her future may hold. Rather than dwell on the pain of her past, she celebrates her liberation from it, writing her stories and poetry to help bring these experiences to a new level of understanding and artistic application. She has proven to be a leader among her peers and inspires them to keep going, keep moving towards a healing future.

And so the time that I spent revisiting my own artistic expressions provided me with the opportunity to free myself from the chores of daily life and work. I found my thoughts becoming clearer, as if a fog had been lifted and had liberated me from the weight of the heavy loads I had been carrying. All the while, I was listening to Dona tell me her story, and then again during her poetry reading at Cranbrook, and her song that she sang as a blessing upon the crowd that came to honor her. She told of her time living in the south after living in Detroit. It had snowed and she knew it was bad when no one was at at the Piggly Wiggly. She said this with such delight that I could not help but be infected by her laughter. She told of her childhood and participation in a professional theatre show. And she told of her time when she found herself living in her Geo Metro, trying to fit her less than slim figure around the gear shift in order to find a moment's comfort. She described the play she was writing about the women who go from shelter to shelter as a means of getting by. "Shelterized" is what she called it, when one gets used to the conditions in the shelter, as an accepted lifestyle.

Her portrait visually describes the turmoil that is depicted in a cloud of confusion overlaid with a handwritten poem she wrote about homelessness. Throughout the narrative portrait, however, there are almost no indoor scenes. Dona's world is not restrained by walls. She tears them down to create a wider range of vision. The waterfront in Detroit was an important feature for Dona and so it figures prominently in her portrait. Her award winning poem - "A River of Tears" - becomes the central text that ties her life story together. Some handwritten text appears above her head in the only indoor photo taken of Dona when we first met in Dr. Moxley's office. He would use the windows to brainstorm his thoughts on his thesis of intentional community. The words that were written on the window over her head seemed apt and so I kept them in Dona's portrait because of her work with both Dr. Moxley and Dr. Washington in the Telling My Story project.

Dona's portrait also includes images from her scrapbook as well as her poetry medal. The bridge, some railroad tracks and a steep steel staircase appear in varying degrees within the landscape of the portrait. They serve as reminders of the various paths that Dona's journey has taken. The photo on the right-most side of the portrait was taken during her Cranbrook poetry reading and is overlaid with crabapple flowers in fresh bloom. For that is Dona's life now, a renewal of her artistry, her fortitude, and her spirit.

Towards the right third of the portrait appears a very small image of a Japanese tea set that had been arranged on Dona's dining table in her little but well-planned studio apartment on Peterson Street. The tea set serves as a symbol of her process of reflection, and renewal, as Dona continues to seek a path towards balance.

Between Gilda's and Joyce's portrait, the creative process ran a similar pattern than for earlier preparations, including a sort of "cleansing" state, listening, notetaking, picture review, re-listening, etc. But as I prepared to begin the actual artwork for Joyce's portrait, I found myself going through a rather extensive "cleaning"... I found myself diving into one of the single most hated projects that involves cleaning in my house... my master bathroom. A room that is really meant for demolition, rather than cleaning. One that has suffered repairs just to keep it functional, while the rest of the house goes on with more attention.

In the "old days", scrubbing my old grimy tiled shower was actually used as rare punishment for my children when they were being particularly obnoxious. On this day, it was my turn. It was the turning over of the old year to the new and I felt the need to complete the task. With iPod plugged into my ears and protected under an old t-shirt and work pants, I set about scrubbing, bleaching, rinsing, and scrubbing some more. A few pieces of the ceramic soap dish fell apart... the grime being the only thing holding them together ... but all in all, the room came clean.

All the while, I listened to Joyce's story, over and over again. I had only been able to interview her for about 70 minutes and so listening to her story more than once was easy while I took on this abhorrent task of scrubbing the shower, the toilet, sink and floor. But as the tiles began to gleam white, and the chrome began to sparkle, I began to see that, in spite of the cracks in the soap dish, the little bathroom really was quite serviceable. Certainly, it lacked a bit of "curb" appeal. But it was clean. And I could live with myself again.

Maybe that is why I took on this particular cleaning project in preparation for Joyce's portrait. I had listened to it at least once already. And I knew that her story was full of grit and grime, the kind that could turn you cold. And her gritty talk as she described her descent into hell and back again was fitting, as I scrubbed the physical grim with a small scrub brush and watched it run towards the drain.

Her penance is to help others. Her sense of humanity had returned and she needed to be able to live with herself again. To scrub the grime from her life, with a small brush, as she finds the gleaming light that comes from within.

Her text, transcribed from our interview, provides a textural narrative provides a necessary visual soundtrack. Here is her portrait.

Unlike the other women I interviewed, Joyce was not recovering from homelessness. Joyce was a crack addict. "Was" is the important word here. She is no longer Joyce, either. Though, for the purposes of creating this portrait, she has asked me to use this name to identify her. Joyce died... crack killed her. But fortunately, the person who was once Joyce has found a new life... helping others who have found themselves consumed by the delusions and controlling power that is crack cocaine.

Her story was frank, jarring, and insightful. I couldn't help be be thankful that my soon-to-be 19 year daughter was sitting there listening to the "former" Joyce's story. I wished that every young person could hear her story. My daughter sat there dutifully recording our interview, careful not to show Joyce's face, as she requested, and videotaping her hands, recording her voice, her words, her body language, as she told her story of a 20 year love affair with crack cocaine and the power it gave her... a delusion that she now describes as a 20 year mental breakdown.

"How did you get started?" my daughter finally asked her, speaking up from her silence behind the camera. It was the million dollar question. And I hadn't asked it. I had let Joyce tell her story the way she wanted to... But my daughter had her personal reasons for wanting to know. How does one make a bad decision that can ruin your life for at least the next two decades? if not you entire life?

A friend had introduced her to it. And she liked it. Or it liked her. And, as she describes it... if the devil were to put a drug on this earth to control people, it would be crack cocaine. Eventually moving from NYC where she had given up a successful career and filed for bankruptcy due (all due to her growing consumption of the drug), she settled into Detroit where she could hide from her sisters and mother and pursue the drugs without inhibition. Money was not a problem. She sold drugs and people, offering women hooked on the drug as a side sport for those successful businessmen who were making a larger buy. She enjoyed diamonds, furs, fancy cars, designer handbags... only to lose them to police confiscation each time she was arrested.

Facing a lifetime in jail due to outstanding warrants and felony convictions, Joyce finally turned for help. Still under the delusions that the drug addiction imposed, she believed she would be able to manipulate the drug counselors to see things her way. And this is where Joyce finally died. After a struggle to get through rehab, she stopped fighting and started listening... her compassion came back, her faith returned, her humanity returned... and she began to ernestly face the sickness that was her addiction.

Through divine intervention, or the strong will of a caring mentor, somehow the former Joyce has been able to make restitution, and avoid jail time, while remaining on lifetime probation that may be shortened because of her remarkable success. She is looking forward to going to school to work towards a bachelor's degree in social work. She has already gone through considerable training as a counselor and works two jobs in what is another application of her obsessive personality. She knows herself and she has chosen to rebuild her life in order to help others.

In creating her portrait, I did not have a lot of materials, at least not as many as for other portraits. Instead, I pulled some peripheral materials, photos that I had shot around Detroit... not yet knowing what they might be used for ... I also wanted to pull in the cocaine. This is a literal story of a particularly horrible journey and it starts with the drugs. The singular nature of this topic helped. While Joyce's story is far more complex than I've outlined here, focusing on this one major storyline has allowed me to create a portrait that is both dramatic and informative. Joyce tells an oral history. There were no journals, and very little in the way of written materials and a fairly shallow base of materials from her scrapbook. I was also conscious of the fact that I did not want to put in any obvious identifying photos... not photos of her daughter, sister, brother, etc. While there are some... I've purposely "blacked out" the faces using the black bar, a metaphor for the legal nature of protecting identity. So her own words became more important.

Without anything written, I went back to our interview. Joyce told her story with an utter frankness that could not be replicated any other way except by direct quotation. I set about to type out the transcript of the entire interview. It took three days, stopping, starting, backing up, revising... Joyce spoke with an urban slang that I wanted to capture,especially when she started getting excited about her story. I tried to capture it all.

Fitting it all into the portrait would not be possible. I chose important sections that seemed to tie the key points together. And besides, this was really meant to become a wallpaper, the proverbial "writing on the wall" so to speak. Only key phrases would stand out more than others... And the words would be waving across the canvas, matching the rhythm of the smoke that I put into the image, blending into the doorway with an "Exit" sign over it... The clock from a Detroit courthouse seemed apt, too... time running out... A photo I took of her reflection in her bedroom mirror that had been cracked beyond expected use, her back to the mirror... seven years, and then some, of bad luck... but her back was to the camera and the mirror.... her back to the bad luck. An angel taken from an image she had framed in her apartment... she said she felt that angels were always watching over her. Why, after all, had she been allowed to survive such a life? Her bottle of change... a thirst for money that will never be satiated the same way again.

No...Joyce's portrait became a portrait in drug-abuse prevention. I wanted her story to be there for all the world to "hear"... Maybe someone will be moved by it. I know my daughter was.

It was a stressful enterprise, completing Gilda's portrait. I could not find the Zen moment... when the images fall together on their own. There was too much confusion, lack of focus, going on in Gilda's life. It seemed to follow a wave and then crash, again and again. So, after having something nearly done, but unhappy with the results, I scrapped it and started again, though not from the beginning. This time I saw the path... a rough one full of lots of hills and valleys, illusions, and underlying disappointments. Gilda survival methods seem to revolve around short term goals that fulfill some kind of illusion (or is it delusion?) of what she feels is necessary for success. She needs to feel needed, to feel wanted, to - at times - be at the center of the spotlight. While there are probably still some minor adjustments to be made on Gilda's portrait (highlights/lowlights/shadows), I feel I've taken it as far as I can for the time being.

Part of the challenge with Gilda is history... there is very little of it. She did not lay a framework from which I could cultivate an identity. Maybe this is on purpose. Her past that she did describe appeared to be full of violence and fear and maybe was an outgrowth of her childhood. She did not say. Her scrapbook went only so far in describing her past, as well. She went as far as Doorstep, and various living quarters, the grocery store where she did her phantom shopping, McDonalds where she and Bumpy ate each morning, etc. These were meaningful, but still fairly superficial in their insights. So, also, were the lists she seemed to continuously write. Juxtaposed with the advertisements in her scrapbooks, it began to create a portrait of someone whose pain is deep but who chooses to live life in a blissful state of expectation, planning, working, falling down and then recovering. Her favorite song.. sung once for me during our interview and then again at Dona's poetry reading ... is "When you walk through a storm..." and probably provides more of an insight into Gilda's emotional psyche than anything else I could find, especially if juxtaposed against the series of events she shared during our interview.

And so the masks of Gilda remained, with only a few glimmers here and there, between the waves of traumas in her life. The portrait became a fairly dark scene, using a sunset image from Gilda's scrapbook and the framework of places she's lived and paths she'd like to take. There are waves there, too, of people and things in Gilda's life, and Gilda herself. The waves get larger and larger. The portrait is framed by two young girls. On the left is a small girl, probably Gilda's niece, but very sweet and innocent looking, representing the inner child that seems to be Gilda. On the right is the teenager and Gilda's daughter, Bumpy, who looks at the camera as she holds a phone to her ear, as if asserting her independence with annoyance. This represents a fearful Gilda, one who fears being alone when she is left behind by her maturing daughter. Barely visible the brighter part of the background is her older daughter at her wedding, a daughter who remains a ghostly reminder of the choices made in Gilda's past.

The waves also hold at their center various stages in Gilda's life and her personal vision of herself. In the smallest wave, there is only Gilda as she stands in the parking lot of Doorstep Shelter. A grocery cart and McDonalds are barely visible textures in the background. The second overlapping wave is her quilt square she created during a session arranged through Wayne State with the name shingle highlighted. This is the "dream" or, in some ways, fantasy, that Gilda wishes for... It overlaps the Food Basics store where she would perform her ritual of phantom shopping, filling and then emptying her grocery cart. But otherwise, this second wave holds darkness through which the lighter waves of family roll through.

The third wave, the second largest, nearly as big as the last one, surrounds a black angel that I photographed in Gilda's apartment. It was blurry in the original photo and I left it that way, despite having sharper versions of this image. She is framed in a Corelleware plate from Gilda's scrapbook and sits upon a path from another advertisement in the scrapbook. This wave represents the personal visions for Gilda, the masks she'd like to wear, the goals of both spiritual and material success she'd like to achieve. But beside and below the angel, we see an unhappy Gilda. She is smiling in nearly all of the photos I obtained. But in this one image we see an unhappy Gilda taken during the quilting session. Maybe she is pondering the obstacles before her in reaching her dream of the house she described in the quilt square.

But in the fourth wave, we have Gilda again, this time peering through the framed images of her family and daughter's recent graduation. She is not at the forefront but seeks to be seen. She is proud of her daughter's accomplishments, and her own for having raised her to this success. But there is uncertainty. For Monday she is evicted. Her daughter seeks to be on her own... Another wave to prepare for...

At the base is a series of bibles that sat on the tables of her living room, on display, and within easy reach for escape when the pressures are too much. But etched into the background of the sky are a series of writings that became almost mantras for Gilda. A prayer, a resolution, a wishlist, a promise...

Here is the "finished" version of Gilda's portrait:

I find myself at odds with much of Gilda's story. As I relisten to her story, I find myself slipping into judgement. However, with judgement comes self assessment. Gilda lost custody of her older daughter after running away from an abusive husband. I could not help but ask myself why she didn't take her daughter with her if life was so bad? After listening to her tell her story, it seemed that she believed her ex would not harm her daughter and that she truly believed this to be best while she spent the next few years fighting in court for custody, something hard to do when one doesn't have any money. Eventually, the daughter ended up living with a friend and teacher she trusted and, through the passage of time and circumstances that I won't go into here (for I am not entirely clear on them myself), she lost custody and lost touch... until she got word of her daughter's wedding.

By this time, Gilda had raised another daughter, Bumpy, who is now graduated from high school, herself, and will be finding her own independence. But it is here where I find myself in the examination of parallels and divergences. It can't be helped. It is part of the process of understanding and assimilating the material... My charge, afterall, is to create some kind of narrative portrait of Gilda and the other ladies. If I cannot bring into my heart some kind of empathy, how can I do my work in a way that will invoke a response in others?

But I have been avoiding my work...I think of it often, listening to the voices in the conversation, looking and editing the photos, taking more photos, finding yet more as I try to add to the collection the ones that help tell the missing story. Gilda is an enigma that way, a woman with many masks, who hides behind them in order to survive. There is the student.... Gilda has been a nearly perpetual student getting good grades, only to undermine her success with one emergency or another. A friend, and expert in family psychology, once described this behavior to me as a sort of addiction to the drama. Maybe that applies to Gilda, too. For it seems that she will go through cycles when life appears to be moving forward and then, through neglect or absence of mind, something important has fallen from her attention... like the rent, or car repairs, or... her older daughter? Leading to eviction, lack of transportation, or... losing parental rights...

Yes, this is where I am troubled. Gilda described one eviction where she eventually left Bumpy to stay with neighbors while she and her sister spent two nights in a hotel unwinding, going out only to get food or drink. Should I judge her because she found a safe place for her daughter so that she could go somewhere else where it was safe to unwind? flee from the stresses she'd just undergone? the stresses she'll soon have to endure again? No... maybe it's only because, secretly, I have wished I could unwind like that, too. It seems like it hasn't been the case for many years... maybe a youthful activity. But on the otherhand, what mother hasn't needed to step away from the stress of the demands of children and the home?

Yet the fighter would stay and fix the problem... address it head on... vow never to let it happen again. But that is me. And this is not a portrait of me. It is Gilda's narrative. She has gone through another eviction since we met. Bumpy has moved on to begin her own independent life. And, once the portrait is completed, if I have done my job well, it will have to be left to the viewers to decide for themselves...

Images that come to mind from Gilda's story - the shopping cart... Why? Gilda spent her days "phantom shopping" at a nearby Farmer Jack while Bumpy was at school. She did not want to go back to Doorstep Shelter. And, if she did not have any doctor's or counselor's appointments, she would spend her time walking up and down the aisles of the grocery store filling her cart with the foods she wished she could buy (she insisted she did not put perishables in there, though)... Then, after her cart was full, she would repeat the process in reverse, slowly putting the items back on the shelf. For, of course, she could not afford to buy them.

It is not the shopping cart of the homeless who push them around like so much luggage overflowing with the detritus of wealth they've picked up on the street. No, this shopping cart is more dreamlike. What would I buy if money were no object? at the Farmer Jack?

Another image.... drawers full and overflowing with stuff... Gilda saves everything.

Maybe this is part of what frightens me. My home is sometimes in a similar state. Part of my procrastination this 'tween holiday week included a sort of purging of old papers, receipts, etc. Filing away bills and receipts I did not need quick access to (not that the big box they were dumped in was "quick").

And my own phantom shopping tricks became apparent. In this post-Christmas holiday sale period, I had fooled myself into thinking I would buy some items that would be marked down. As a college professor, I make a good salary. Yet this time of year always seems to be tighter. The heating bills have crept up, property tax bills due soon, prior Christmas shopping, a daughter's November birthday bills come due... And this year we can add the start of my recent student loans to be paid back AND my older daughter's return from college out of state.

No, I'm not complaining. But as I walked the aisles of Target the other day, I found myself NOT putting anything in the basket, except maybe some Christmas cards I would use for next year. What would normally be a joyful shopping spree became an exercise is sad restraint. There was nothing that appealed to me more than the cost I would be paying.

Isn't that the trade off? Isn't that why we use the phrase "If money were no object..."? Because Money IS the object. We make a conspiratorial trade for it. I give the merchant X amount of dollars in exchange for something I feel is worth that. However, this week, as I contemplated the story of Gilda, and my own financial position, I found that I could apply Gilda's phantom shopping - "window shopping" as my grandmother used to call it - to get to the front of the store without a full cart. The restraint was both depressing and liberating. Depressing because I did not find anything that really thrilled me. But liberating because I paid cash for my little purchase. No credit cards. This purchase will not haunt me into the next month.

But Gilda's story is more than the shopping cart, more than stuff. It is the many masks of Gilda... the student Gilda, Bumpy's mother Gilda, the lost-mother Gilda, the ex-wife Gilda, the confused Gilda, the faithful Gilda, the calligrapher Gilda, the wishful Gilda, the sister Gilda, the singing Gilda... and the often very sad or angry Gilda. No, she did not show this side of her to me directly. But through her stories, and in her eyes there were the occasional flashes. These were the sparks that would ignite the storm that seems to hide under the masks. But how is she so different from the other ladies I've met? Maybe she's not. Maybe it is through her story that I can relate those faces of Gilda, and her steps, tentative, twisting, turning, and sometimes forward, that make up the journey of Gilda, a path that contains a hard journey still ahead of her.

With Rachel's portrait now complete, I can reflect upon what has brought it to fruition. Her personal stories from the interview indicated a series of successes and bitter disappointments as she grew up and aimed for what she described as her American Dream "a new house, new job, new baby, new car..." But it wasn't in the cards for Rachel... a controlling spouse, a series of job losses, failed training programs and a stalwart focus on a job description that may now be obsolete...

Whatever her personal stumbling blocks, Rachel also possesses a fierce maternal instinct to protect her youngest sons and try to guide them towards personal and academic success. She expresses a fear, one bred of personal experience, that her sons and daughter will face the same pains of racial discrimination that she did. Expressing a passionate, almost pleading wish, Rachel challenges the city of Detroit, parents, and the city schools to care... about their children, the African American youth in general, and the future of a city in ruins. The dream business she hopes to create reflects this as well - "01-Zeke, Zeigler's PC Training and Software Suites" complete with the impassioned refrain "Who Cares, We Care, The Parents Care, The Youth Care (Most Important)".

Her portrait consists of a personal tour through her life, based mostly upon the photographs and captions from her scrapbook and some from our interview. Most of the scrapbook photos were taken by another member of the WSU Telling My Story team as he followed Rachel around Detroit with other members of the team. From Doorstep Shelter to her old home where she raised her first set of children in her "American Dream" life, to the building ruins where her cousin lived homeless as "security" for the landlord, to the decaying abomination of an abandoned Detroit cathedral with the peeling mural of Jesus - arms reaching outward - visible inside through the open archway left by the missing stained glass windows. Though Rachel is Muslim, she is a modern woman who exhibits a respect for all faiths, with homages to different beliefs and leaders on display in her sunny apartment. But it is a melancholy view from her renovated cloister that looks across a decaying city dominated by the ultra modern Renaissance Center with the Westin Hotels, her former nemesis, and the General Motors Headquarters, a sign of an industry out of touch. Overlaying the image of an ultra modern facility is a picture of Rachel holding on to a chainlink fence, locked out of what lies on the other side, through circumstance and twists of fate.

As I allowed the material to assemble itself, the portrait became dominated by a railroad tram called the "People Mover". In Detroit, this extremely limited nod to mass transit that sees little use by the masses is almost iconic as it moves between a few local highrises. Like a haunting graffiti, I placed the images of Rachel's early family along with some of her newer family - a young son at Christmas, one of the two younger sons as a teenager sleeping on the couch, 01-Zeke's business card, and her own words that describe her fears and hopes.

On either side of the People Mover, Rachel provides a tour of her life. Doorstep Shelter, a place that nearly all of the women refer to as "hell on earth", plays a major role here. Her silhouette frames a poetic journey... "I have no eyes, nor ears, nor mouth, nor nose, nor tongue.... I am blind, deaf, and dumb..." And through the doors we see the "mothers and children, sitting on the dock, just wasting time..." Above the doorframe is a dark juxtaposition of a Christian Nativity that Rachel had on display in her living room.

Scattered across the overall portrait, are photos, as if dropped upon the floor haphazardly, of her journey, stretching the very limits of her personal strength, causing cracks and fissures that have yet to heal, like the crumbling bricks around the archway in the small center photo. Her own caption begs the question "What happened Rachel?" Two photos from the same timeframe were overlayed. The one that Rachel had placed in her scrapbook exhibited a more contemplative pose, leaning against the side of the arched window frame. The second photo had her standing in a more forthright, almost challenging pose. I chose to ghost this one into the first picture, in a way reflecting upon the very question she asks of herself.

When I first arrived to interview Rachel, she was under the impression that my portrait would be more formal. A beautiful and sometimes stern woman, Rachel was dressed in a very attractive suit jacket and skirt and, though quite nervous, her face would light up when she smiled. Upon learning that the portrait was not so much a painting as it would be a conceptual portrait, she seemed to accept this and we began our conversation. A more "formal" portrait does appears within this conceptual one, but it is hidden in the shades and other women visible through the window of her old Doorstep room and overlayed with a blurred image of the Koran that she keeps open within reach, all towards the right side of the People Mover. Juxtaposed with her silhouetted figure against the window, Rachel's contemplative gaze reflects upon a dream that she cannot quite reach, as she is weighted down by the all-too-heavy emotional strains of her past.

So as I began as interpreter for this project, I find myself more of a facilitator. For Rachel is the one responsible for the content here. It is her story, as she tell it. My role here was as a conceptual conduit, bringing together the elements so that they would pour forth an even stronger emotional response than might occur otherwise. In this way, I find the finished portrait almost haunting in nature. As a working mother, who has faced the groundbreaking challenges of building a career and family, I found personal connections to Rachel's story that I hadn't thought would be possible at first. Yet there they were....

The holiday season is not easy to get into these days. Maybe it is the news in the media, layoffs, plant closings (I leave near Flint, Michigan, and work at a community college there); maybe it is the Iraq war, the still homeless victims of Hurricane Katrina, knowing that so many are far from home, have no home, or otherwise face the prospect of impending homelessness, heartache or both. I find that it is my family that gives me the most positive energy to face the day. The prospect of my oldest's return from college for the holiday also gives me a lightness of heart that contrasts to the other burdens of the day.

My emotional radar has also been tuned to those close to me who are in the midst of unfathomable heartache, too. A sad anniversary of life lost, another at risk of being lost. Though we live far away from each other, I send out mental images of emotional strength, hoping that they can feel the virtual "hug" and lean on the shoulder that offers them support at a time when they're feeling drained.

It seems that no matter what I do to try and focus on the project at hand, I find myself drawn to other things, other thoughts, many related directly or indirectly to the subject at hand, creating Rachel's portrait of her recovery from homelessness. As I listen to her interview again and again, I hear the bitterness, pain, and a sadness that seems difficult to get out from under. It is apparent that Rachel has not made peace with herself or her outside world. And while she blames many others for her difficulties, she also carries an incredible weight of self-imposed guilt for not making a peaceful and stable world for her two youngest sons. She seems driven to make this happen, even at the risk of her own sanity. And I cannot blame her for acting on this overpowering maternal guardian spirit she possesses.

If I could come up with a characteristic that I hope to portray in Rachel's portrait, it is one of physical pressure - from both within and from outside of her physical wellbeing. She imposes such expectations (maybe I see some of myself here, as well), that she faces incredible personal disappointment and bitterness when outside factors trip up or purposefully derail her efforts.

The other characteristic that I'm considering as part of this portrait is one of the monologue as Rachel portrays her process of recovery with not only photographs but also a more personal descriptive narrative that relates the image in the photos to her personal self-image. She wrote almost poetic captions to accompany these photos and I would like to include the words as a running soliloquy throughout the piece.

I'm finding, too, that the act of writing this blog, while meant as a publicly available journal on the creation of these portraits, has created a means of putting my thoughts into focus, providing an opportunity to both release myself from the emotional weight that comes and goes with this work built upon empathy, but also a place where I can literally leave my thoughts before going onward to the task at hand.

I appreciate the reader's patience as I, too, make my way through the labyrinth of emotive creation and unload my burden here.

Here are two photos that I recaptured today from my family's early days.

One is of my daughter Sarah when she was only about 2 years old on Sanibel Island. This morning I awoke, thinking of this photo and the phrase "proof that angels exist". The birds, the clouds, seem to reinforce this notion and I had to find the photo before I could put the thought to rest again.
















The second photo I came across while looking for the first. It is of both daughters, Sarah (age 3 yrs, 3 mo.) and Anastassia as a nearly newborn. It speaks for itself.

With a decidedly more positive outcome than some of the others, Iona's portrait is now "finished". That an artist is never actually "finished" is a given. I reserve the option to polish this work further. But for now, it is done.

Iona's portrait was in many ways less stressful to complete than the others. There was a lightheartedness to it. Even while there is a dark period and melancholy in parts, there is also a twist of humor about it. Her drawings help reinforce this, along with her choice of music lyrics which peer in and out of the images throughout the piece. From "Sweet Georgia Brown" to "Alexander's Ragtime Band" to "Take me out to the ballgame"... Iona's sense of ironic wit peeks through... right down to the little joke that appears in the form of a life lesson retold from urban internet myth about a 93-yr-old lady who has no enemies... "I just outlived the bitches"...

You can't help but marvel at Iona's spirit.


The fourth in the series of "graphic" portraits...

Iona's portrait has taken on yet again a different feeling. This is in part due to the fact that much of the imagery is her own.... her own drawings, and her own photographs. The images that I had taken were from her room, a small space overflowing with possessions in various stages of use or non-use, as the case may be. But Iona's interest in drawing and prolific and narrative approach to photography made for a more meaningful source of material from which a "portrait" could bloom.

Though she has faced her share of difficulties, Iona seemed to have a clearer view of her future, or at least one that did not seem to dwell on pain or fear. There is a strength of faith not necessarily tied to religion, but to a self-confidence long worn of years of hard work and self-sufficiency. She seems to know that, while sometimes tragic, life's ironies are boundless, and her good humor and wit will help see her through the darkness towards a brighter future.

On a slightly different topic - I feel stuck in a quandary. Something that many folks must go through as they consider the upcoming Christmas season. Money is tight all around. Yet getting to know these ladies has reminded me once again the value of everyday living, friendships, family. We are truly blessed... and do not "need" anything. My children do not "want" for anything... yet there are still bills to be paid, those that come from the blessings of their success... music lessons, art supplies, college tuition...

And so I have considered making the following resolution for the upcoming season. My gifts to my family will include only one or two items that are "special" and everything else will be things they might use anyway - a coat, a pair of boots for winter, a book to read.

But gifts to others will be different. Or maybe not. My gifts to my family and others beyond those few "special" or "useful" items will include something else. There will be no "nonsense" gifts, things that are given just for the sake of saying "Merry Christmas". The gifts will be to others, maybe some folks I do not even know.

This is my pledge... My gifts to friends (and family) will be the gift of charity to strangers who have needs that are not being fulfilled. So that they might find something "special" for Christmas, too, even if it is something "useful".

In this way, I hope that I will be able to contribute more to the local charities serving a growing number of people who seek help, and spend less on the silly things that just clog up my overly full life, clouding my vision of the blessings I already have.

I've basically completed Dorothy's portrait. Of the three done so far, it is probably the most intense. However, I'm beginning to see ways that I might modify the earlier portraits, especially Elaine's which I think now needs to have more quiet space, especially behind the mirrored tiles. This is not hard. Only the size of the file poses a challenge, nearly 2 gb. However, that is do-able.

It was rather exhausting to finish Dorothy's piece, physically and emotionally. Possibly influenced by the downturn in the weather, too. But the piece exhibits a more dramatic range of emotions and experiences than any of the others. Still, it is still a "draft" as far as I'm concerned. And it will require a bit more polish before I'm ready to consider it really "finished".

I've decided to move on to Iona's portrait next. I was looking for an emotional break. And, despite all of the personal challenges she has faced, Iona has managed to maintain a rather dry wit, a sense of irony in her humor. This was most apparent as she describes the fire that destroyed the house she lived in with the rest of her family that she cared for. No one was hurt but she found herself homeless, hobbling around with a cast on her broken leg (from an earlier incident) with no crutches and no bed. She slept on the floor of friends' houses, and when she did find work, she was traveling to the ends of several bus lines then "walking" another two miles, all the while hobbling along. She tells this story with a cackling laugh of someone who saw the absolute idiocy of the predicament, yet didn't lose hope for her future ability to recover from it.

Elaine's photos from her scrapbook and her interest (with samples) in drawing indicate a desire to make a record of her life and its various ups and downs. There is a wonderful lyricism to her photos. It will be interesting to see how this portrait all comes together.

Meanwhile, the weather is wet, cold, and windy. Winter is not far off, hours perhaps. And these days my daughter tans between classes at the University of Hawai'i. No matter what our standing in life, there's always a place we'd rather be...


The third in the series of "graphic" portraits...

After a whirlwind end to the week eating into my weekend with lots of wonderful but exhausting family activities, I finally went back to Dorothy's stories so that I could begin fashioning her portrait. But as she relays her stories in a voice that is tremulously calm, I found it very difficult to imagine how I could resolve her words with many of the photos I'd taken around her home... a home that is alternately filled with plastic and ceramic fruit, plastic and ceramic African-American angels, and an entire room dedicated to Tweety Bird. It was as if, in order to cushion/protect herself from the various horrific traumas in her life, she has created her own padded cell... locked away from the pain she perceives is inflicted from the outside... but she carries within her, unable to escape. Her "panic" room is the tweety bedroom, a place to hide, to retreat to a childlike innocence, one that escaped her in her own childhood.

So how do I resolve this? A new art exhibition at Mott's gallery helped break open the bottleneck. Donovan Entrekin is exhibiting his humanistic "portraits", created with a crude rawness that relays the inner turmoil of our being. On the way home, I "saw" what I would need to create. A piece that gradually went through an exchange from the rawness, the sharpness, the ragged edges of life before. It would transition through a mirror framed in butterflies that sat beside her tweety bird bedroom window, a symbol of her attempted metamorphosis, until the soft and fuzzy roundness of the piles of tweety birds on the bed wrapped us in protection.

I've begun to put it together and I like how it's working. A gilt-framed mirror holds the "shards" of a deteriorated Detroit house and is overlayed with a photo Dorothy took of the Family Independence Agency shot through a chainlink fence. How ironic... The texture it created was perfect. It will be challenging to keep the piece in a state of transition...

until then...I rest.

My current project consists of creating "graphic" portraits of eight African-American women over age 50 who are in various stages of recovery from homelessness. This past summer, with assistance from my college-bound daughter, I video-taped interviews of each of these women as they very kindly shared with me their stories. That is, by the way, the name of the project - "Telling My Story". I'm on my third "portrait" now and, far from being literal images of their faces, I am creating what is in essence a conceptual portrait made up of a variety of elements composed in such a way as to create some kind of emotional response.

Each of the ladies' stories is unique. And, as I play back the audio from the interviews, taking notes again as I also look at photos I took and the scrapbooks they created, I find myself being drawn into their stories, often repulsed, more often puzzled, and even more often drawn nearly to tears. But most of all, I am absolutely amazed by their inner strength, facing sometimes the greatest odds for their very survival and that of their dearest loved ones. Their portraits are portraits of survival and a dedication to their inner strengths, their faiths, their personal character.

Ultimately, I am left in awe. We're each only a thin line from facing the prospect of homelessness. And we each have to ask ourselves... do we have the strength within us to survive? and would we recover? My empathetic response is necessary in order to create an effective portrait. But it draws heavily upon my own emotional state. And I find I must withdraw regularly in order to preserve my own sanity.

Such is the life of an artist, I guess.



The first in the series of "graphic" portraits...


The second in the series of "graphic" portraits...