Two works were accepted for a show at a gallery in Amesbury MA. I am excited because it is rare that a show’s title fits perfectly with art that I have created. But this show’s title did which is why, despite not knowing the gallery I submitted my pieces. The two pieces accepted are pieces I want to show the world so it is nice they will be hung. The gallery is also an art store and I have no idea what sort of traffic it gets as I have never been to Amesbury. But I looked at their previous shows and liked their curation.
Framing is so expensive. I had hoped to do it myself but the place that has the do-it-yourself framing is in a town that does not have a mask mandate and it seemed a bit too risky to spend hours indoors in a place where anyone could walk in without a mask and with Omicron circulating. So I will go to a local frame shop that framed the pieces hanging right now in our group show. Meanwhile I will get my self portrait framed for my parents. After seeing “A Year of Interiors” and Holly and Bonny’s self portrait they asked me why I did not have a self portrait in the show. When my mom asked me this I suddenly felt like I was in elementary school and my mother was wondering why my work was not featured or I was not the lead in some play. It is funny how even when parents are elderly and we are adults they can say something and transport us into children again.
My parents own one of the best paintings I have ever created. It is a self portrait of myself. I was 40ish at the time. We were struggling with our middle son. I felt like my father in particular was not being helpful and he had gotten extremely angry with my son during a dinner for something our son did. I was angry. And so the painting is red and orange and intense. I was full of emotion and tears as I painted it. And that year for my father’s birthday I gave him the painting. It was my passive aggressive way of confronting them. My parent’s did not see the anger or frustration in the painting. They just saw “me” and they both loved the painting and framed it. For years it was in their living room in Lexington and got many compliments from visitors. I would sometimes be sitting in their living room and look over at the painting and be amazed I had created it. Now it is in their apartment at their independent living senior community. In response to my mother’ s inquiry about whether I had done self portraits, I showed them all the self portraits I had done since the pandemic. Many are not exactly flattering and my mother did not like those. Especially the one’s where I emphasized my jowls or looked angry and frustrated. Although she did like the one I did the morning after the 2020 election…which is funny because I was bundled up as it was quite cold and the mirror was tipped at an angle so I look a bit pudgy in it. Well here is a selection of the self portraits. Try to guess which one my parents asked me to frame for them.
