This week I noticed my face had fallen. I've been watching things crinkle and sag for a few years now. But suddenly it seems so much the worse for wear. People usually think I'm a good 20 years younger than I actually am. And thanks to genetics, perhaps I'll keep fooling them. But I remember the precise moment I realized my skin had lost its youthful blush. And now, it seems to have lost everything.
In the interest of getting some portrait commissions, Larry has been showing people a nude he took of me a few years ago. My long hair covers most of my body, pulled over my head, and down my front, exposing just one breast. It is a beautiful photograph. And it seems to capture the last moment of youth in my body, just as a portait taken by my best friend when we lived in Los Angeles does of my face.
In my art, I am obsessed with things broken, aged, worn and wounded. I find an incomparable, powerful beauty in their degradation. Can I find that same love and passion for the face I look at each morning in the mirror, as I smooth my skin with the lightest touch of foundation, line my eyes with khol, brush on mascara, and restore color to my lips and cheeks.
Can I find that same awe for this body, its thin skinned hands, and ever fleshier hips, thighs and knees?
Ann Haaland over at The Paint Box was blogging about diminishing eye sight and its effect on painting and life.
In advertising everything is retouched to perfection.
How can we create a retouching lens of our own? In our hearts, our eyes and our minds?
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