Self Portrait

Self-Portrait
Acrylic on Panel, 11x14"
www.davida-art.com

This was done on a residency in Hungary at Balatonfured on Lake Balaton. Lake Balaton is the largest fresh water lake in Europe. I spent a lot of time painting on the porch as I had ruptured my achilles tendon while in Budapest. That wasn't actually confirmed until I got home. I spent 8 weeks in a boot and that was through most of my semester teaching. This and the beginnings of another self-portrait posted here were done during this residency.

Idea/Work in Progress

Two Dolls
Oil on Panel, 18x14"
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I have an accumulation of figure studies from a Saturday session I attend each weekend. It is the high point of my week. I enjoy painting these for the company of the group and the for the skills building and maintenance. But these are works I would not submit for any exhibition. They are strictly studies, not art. So I have decided to use them as bases for exploring some the metaphorical possibilities of my dolls. This is not a finished work in any way. It is an exercise just for provoking ideas. I get more ideas when I am working than at any other time. I have a pad of paper nearby just for those ideas that pop into my head so I can write them down before they leave my head as fast as they have entered it.

Self Portrait

Self-Portrait with Magritte
Acrylic on Canvas, 48x36"
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This is a self-portrait that is an observed mirror image. I have even included the beveled edges and the broken character of the image within them. On the mirror I stuck a postcard image of a Magritte titled Rape. It is a female torso that doubles as a head and shoulders portrait of a woman. I have used postcards like this in the past to have a discussion with art history. I intend to continue doing so but in what context? I am not sure.

I am uncertain as to what Magritte's attitude towards women was, but this doesn't communicate any great respect for women as persons to me. Has anyone done a little research on this painting? I'd love to hear from you.

Self-Portrait

Self-Portrait
Watercolor on Masa Paper, 22x19"
www.davida-art.com

This is a one of only two self-portraits I have done on masa paper. I am not very happy with it. I don't think I have a likeness. This is my last self-portrait. The concept is going cold on me and I have to move on. I have been at a loss as to where my serious work will go. Stay tuned…

Self-Portrait

Self-Portrait with Fallen Idols
Watercolor on Rag Paper, 21x29"
www.davida-art.com

This is a self-portrait with very personal emotional stuff going on. The figurines represent my parents on a pedestal and in a bell jar—inaccessible. The mug in the form of Mona Lisa represents my vocation as an artist. The crying doll represents some of the painful issue I had work through regarding my parents. The artists' mannequins represent male and female with their flaws. I have added sexual characteristics to make them anatomically correct.

Antigone's Altar

Antigone's Altar
Oil on Panel, 20x16"
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This is a version of a previously posted watercolor painting done in oil paint. Which do you prefer?

A Break From Self-Portraits Continued

Antigone's Votive
Watercolor on Rag Paper, 22x15"
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This another in the series using the mutilated doll I was given. Once again I wanted a disturbing image. An object associated with childhood innocence has become a lascivious, erotic icon.

Dolls, Collage

Antigone's Alter
Watercolor, Collage on Rag Paper, 21x15"
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This is another image with the damaged doll from the 1930's. Her disembodied head is in a reflective bowl. Her dismembered leg is on the table cloth. Another doll on which one is to hang jewelry is to the right. This doll is headless with no arms and "wearing" a dress in which no one could walk. Both dolls are mutilated.

Above is Titian's Sleeping Venus. A photo of a male nude is next to her, also in a reclining pose but, seeming to be looking at her. The Venus, as a nude, sleeping woman, is without awareness of being the object anyone's looking or sexual desires. It is a very often used trope in the history of art and it is also carried over to soft core porn. In her nakedness she is vulnerable as a passive object of desire. Nude men are usually depicted as active and their nakedness is usually covered. Their exposure and accompanying vulnerability seems to be verboten.

Little girls are encouraged to learn to pose, without awareness, in a sexual way at a very early age. Such socialization as sexualized appearances is, to me, an emotional mutilation of girls. Their appearances and sexuality become a commodity for the desire of others. Think of Girls Gone Wild.

A Break From Self-Portraits

Antigone's Altar
Watercolor on Rag Paper, 21x15"
www.davida-art.com

Though I have more self-portraits, I am changing my direction and taking an element from some of them, dolls, and developing a body of work that says what I wish to say by using them instead of me. I am trying different combinations of imagery just to see what I am getting through to my audience.

So here is one of the first images. I was given an old doll from the 1930s that was not stored in ideal conditions. The result is a cellulose doll that has fallen a part at the joints and has developed cracks on its surface. I have put its parts together in a way so as to make it disturbing in its implied eroticism. I wanted an object associated with childhood innocence to become lascivious and disquieting.

I really object to the stereotypes of femininity and sexualization imposed on little girls at too early an age. The media images directed at girls deliver a message that values an external and social expectation based on appearance rather than an internally based sense of worth. An externally imposed fashion based self-image undermines girls' self-confidence because a constantly shifting fashion makes achievement of that image impossible.

Self Portrait, Again

Self-Portrait: May in Vermont
Watercolor on Rag Paper, 21x30"
www.davida-art.com

This was done on a residency at the Vermont Studio Center. The weather was extraordinarily warm for May. Temperatures were in the 80-90 degree range. It seemed more like early summer than early spring. Some of us had even been swimming in the river that ran next to the studio center's buildings.

I had to be outside. The winter in Chicago had been too long and severe for me to stay in the studio. Two elderly sisters lived in the house behind me and the tree in front of the house positively hummed with bees pollinating the last of it blossoms. The road back to the center is to the left of the mirror.

Inside/Outside

Self-Portrait: Rain Day
Watercolor on Rag Paper, 21x29"
www.davida-art.com

This was done on a very rainy, cold day. It was impossible to paint outdoors. So I set my mirror on the cottage sofa and placed my hat and sun glassses of the previous outdoor self-portraits in front of it along with the still life materials I bring with just in case we can't go outside. My painting buddy is there with me creating her own rain day painting.

Outdoor Self-Portrait

Self-Portrait on the Rocks
Watercolor on Rag Paper, 21x29"
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Here I am with one of those stone 'hedges'. I set up my mirror with a broad meadow to my back with a few trees over my shoulder. The frost of the previous winter had heaved to fence posts in the 'hedge' to one side leaving the barbed wire loosely looped from one post to the next. You can just see my mini-van on the other side of the 'hedge'.

Comraderie

Self-Portrait with Painting Buddy
Watercolor on Rag Paper, 29x21"
www.davida-art.com

I have an annual painting trip that I make with a group. It's very satisfying being with a group of like-minded individuals. The energy of a bunch of artists is enough to carry me on for the next year. Art takes center stage and all the other nagging responsibilities that keep one from the easel are out of mind. There is no phone or TV. Nothing matters but the painting process. Here I am with another participant in this annual event. The mirror has been placed on an Adirondack chair and you see the scene exactly as I saw it.

For the Love of Cars

Self-Portrait in the Car
21x29", Watercolor on Rag Paper
www.davida-art.com

Americans love their cars. I am so dependent on my car. I use it for shelter while going out to paint. I keep all kinds of equipment in it: gobs of paper and mounting boards for workshops When I teach it's my office. I have packed entire exhibitions in it and driven hundreds of miles to deliver them. So to acknowledge this relationship with my minivan, I crawled into the back seat, lowered the backs on the center row of seats, set up my warehouse mirror and made a self portrait. Hail the minivan!

My next van will be a hybrid to save on emissions and fuel.

Another Outdoor Self-Portrait

In the Tailgate Shade
Watercolor on Rag Paper, 29x21"
www.davida-art.com

When I paint outdoors it seems I depend a lot on my car. I have a mini-van that is so right for me for schlepping big paintings and for finding just the right outdoor location for a painting. Then it serves as shade from the sun. So here I am painting in the tailgate shade in my hat and sunglasses.

Another Outdoor Self-Portrait

Bay Sisters
Watercolor on Rag Paper, 21x29"
www.davida-art.com

This another in a series of outdoor self-portraits. I am a Great Lakes mid-westerner. I have spent my life near the shores of these vast freshwater lakes and I still love to be near them in the summer. Here I have planted my easel with my warehouse mirror on the shore of Sister Bay, Wisconsin. I wanted to show the waters of the bay. Unfortunately I had a view behind me that I didn't particularly like—a gas station. So I turned my mirror around and painted the bay again! I am holding on to the camp stool I was using as a table for my watercolor palette because it was so windy it would have blown away otherwise.

I am wearing my favorite painting hat. I have unfortunately lost it since then and haven't found another one to replace it. It covered my neck and ears to prevent sunburn. Something very important to a sunburn queen. I called it my 'Davida of the Desert' hat.

Outdoor Self-Portrait

Self-Portrait: Pickets
Watercolor on Rag Paper, 22x30"
www.davida-art.com

This was done in two locations. It was begun on a road right on Lake Michigan in front of a house with white picket fences. It was thick and dark with cedar trees. The morning started out pleasantly but within an hour and a half a palpable weather front came through that sent paints, brushes, palettes, and other painting supplies flying. The temperature dropped about 15 degrees in as many minutes. So I packed up and planned on finishing later. No such luck. It was rainy and cold for the rest on my stay. When I returned several weeks later to finish the picket fences were gone! It was the contrast of the white against the dark of the cedar trees that had attracted in the first place and now the fence was of a material that blended in with the trees. So I ended up going home to finish this in my back yard and making up part of the fencing in the process.

Mugs of the Masters, Continued

Self-Portrait with Fruit & Vessels
Watercolor on Rag Paper, 16x20"
www.davida-art.com

This continues the theme of silencing voices. The Mona Lisa mug appears once again and a mug with a reproduction of one of Gaugin's Tahitian fantasies also appears. There is a postcard in the foreground with a Georgia O'Keefe. She blustered that her paintings were not about female imagery but it is hard to refute.

Mugs of the Masters, Continued

Self-Portrait with Vincent & Paul
Watercolor on Rag Paper, 16x20"
www.davida-art.com

This was done in my last house. This is the shelf on a mirror hall piece that is framed in brass. You can see reflections into a part of the house with my artwork on the walls. The mugs have reproductions of a still life of Cezanne's and one of the bedrooms paintings of Van Gogh. I am there too because this was painted from observation. The mugs obscure my face particularly my mouth. It's about the silencing of artists, both women and men, by the corrupt and selective character of art history or social constraints or anything that might keep an artist from sharing work with an audience.

Mugs of the Masters, Continued

Self-Portrait with De Chirico
Watercolor on Rag Paper, 16x20
www.davida-art.com

This another Mugs of the Masters painting. The mug has a reproduction of one of De Chirico's metaphysical paintings. I have two of my watercolors of male nudes in the background. I think the men should now get the same treatment women have been receiving from them for centuries—naked, exposed and vulnerable.

I have the signs of my vocation in the form of a paint jar and paint tube. To the left is a picture of my hubby asleep. He seems to be asleep at awkward times. A friend of mine noted that all the vessels are empty. I have been wondering if that means anything. "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar." Thank you, Sigmund.

Mugs of the Masters, Continued

Self-Portrait with Pablo, Paul & Vincent
Watercolor on Rag Paper, 16x20"
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In this self-portrait I have used the same fabric as in the previous painting. The mugs show the works of Paul Cezanne and Vincent Van Gogh. The ceramic vase of the chubby lady holds my brushes. In the background can be seen a few pieces of my work. One of those has been posted on my other blog: lifeartist-davidablog.blogspot.com/.

They are considered the fathers of modern painting. Pablo Picasso derives his work from Cezanne and he became the most influential painter of the first half of the 20th century. So I have placed my self in distinguished company. I am being very snotty in comparing myself to them. My mug can mug with their mugs any day!

Self-Portrait

Self-Portrait with Lace and Doll
Watercolor on Rag Paper, 16x20"
www.davida-art.com

This is part of a series I privately and facetiously call "Mugs of the Masters". I was at a retrospective exhibition of Mary Cassatt's work at the Art Institute of Chicago. My art buddies and I lingered over each piece and discussed everything from the technical to the sublime. We were a decided exception. Most people dashed through this very large exhibition right on to the shop at the end of the show to buy mugs, towels, umbrellas, and note cards with reproductions of the work they had not really seen in the gallery. My friend referenced Mel Brooks' film Space Balls quoting, "Merchandising! Space Balls the flame thrower! The kids will love this one!"

I bought a mug with a work of Mary Cassat's and then bought a few mugs with reproductions of DeChirico and Cezanne elsewhere and put together this set up. The mug that is the face is the Mona Lisa. She faces my reflection in the mirror and we both look towards an isolated Mary Cassatt mug with my brushes in the cup. You can see me working in the background mirror on the left. My little doll sticks its tongue out at it all.

Self Portrait, Another Watercolor

Self-Portrait with Apple
Watercolor on Rag Paper, 29x21"
www.davida-art.com
Sold

This self-portrait also makes use of the round warehouse mirror. It's on an easel with a small table in front of it. A "tallit" is draped around the mirror with its fringes cascading across the table. Centered between the fringes is an apple. Behind my image is a large window through which can be seen Lake Michigan under stormy skies. I think what I wrote with the last post makes writing any more redundant.

This painting and the previous self-portrait won awards from Watercolor USA. This painting was sold at the exhibition.

Watercolor Self-Portrait

Self-Portrait: Goddesses All
Watercolor on Rag Paper, 29x21"
www.davida-art.com

The three figurines in front of, and reflected in, the mirror are reproductions of three goddesses from the Greek Cycladic Islands. They date to about 2000 bce. The bowl they are sitting on reminded me of a tripod for burnt offerings from ancient Greece. The image in front of them is the Goddess of Willendorf (ca. 25,000bce. When god was a woman she looked like me.) All the goddesses sit on a prayer shawl or 'tallit'. The wearing of a 'tallit' was, until fairly recently, reserved for Jewsh men only. It's time for women to be on top.

The candle sticks are devoid of candles because I am not a practicing Jewish woman. I refuse to be part of any organized religion where the men pray in thanks to god for not being born women. Granted some branches of Judaism no longer have this as part of the daily prayers but until this is no longer part of any Jewish liturgy I will not be a co-conspirator to my own oppression.

Self Portrait,Watercolor

Self-Portrait in the Laundry Room
Watercolor on Rag Paper, 29x21"
www.davida-art.com

I painted this self-portrait in answer to a professor I had when I went back to graduate school. I returned to school at a late age after raising my kids. I was 46. I admitted that I painted between loads of laundry in my laundry room. The response was, " That's the problem with women. They aren't professional. You need to put these trivial things aside and just go to the studio!" The problem was that he had a wife to take care of "these trivial things" and I didn't. I was furious. So this painting was an answer to his ridiculous attitude towards the "trivialities" in life.

I have the tools of my duel occupations: artist and home making engineer.

Another Self-portrait

Self-Portrait
Watercolor on Rag Paper, 29x21"
www.davida-art.com

This is another warehouse mirror self-portrait using the same kind of set-up: the mirror on the easel, a table with objects in front of the easel, what is seen behind the mirror, what is seen reflected in the mirror. I have placed the viewer in my position. The viewer is looking into the mirror and sees me. Behind me is the studio and another painting in this series

I am actively working. There is a book of Cezanne reproductions on the front table; apples as a direct reference to Cezanne and his still life paintings; a picture of me and my sons;and a hammer for making painting stretchers. Behind the mirror is a table with a table cloth and on the table are more still life objects and studio work objects. There is also another reflected image of me.

Once again it is an acknowledgement of my vocation as an artist and a conversation with art histroy and my position, as a woman, within it.

Self Portrait

Self Portrait with Apples & Brushes
Watercolor on Rag Paper, 29x21"
www.davida-art.com

This one of a series of works in which I use a warehouse mirror that I have placed on an easel. The warehouse mirror is essentially a fisheye lense that reveals more of the environment than is usually seen in a flat mirror. Behind the warehouse mirror are studio props and a flat mirror. In front of the mirror I placed a small table with a table cloth, some apples, and an old soup can of paint brushes. Reflected in the warehouse mirror are me, my surroundings, and the items in front of the mirror reflected in the mirror. It is a contrivance I have used often so I am explaining it now. Be prepared for more like this.

By revealing the environment of the studio I am declaring my vocation. I am also revealing myself literally in an another unclothed self-portrait. I am also using several tropes that have a long art history as part of the representation of women. This part of a converstion with art history and the role of women as subject matter and as artists. The second self portrait in the background mirror acknowledges the contrivance this complicated set-up is.

Self Portrait

Self-Portrait (Blue Brush)
Acrylic on Canvas, 60x48"
www.davida-art.com

My blog description says "Paintings with Things to Say". This is one more of those. I have a reputation for being a snot and this painting, though austere in setting, is snotty or defiant—whatever descriptive you might want to choose.

This and the work of the previous post is let the world know that women are not all like the images pushed by the media and we never had to be. After years of starving myself trying to be what I was not, I have capitulated in the battle of the bulge. This is who I am and if you don't like, tough! It is also to acknowledge my vocation as an artist. I have had a very hard time convincing some people that I am a serious artist. By taking my clothes off, I convinced them.

Companion

Self-Portrait (Torso)
Acrylic on Canvas, 48x36"
www.davida-art.com

This a companion piece to the previous post. In fact, I consider these two pieces to be one work. Women can look at themselves in the mirror, try to be who they are not, and, in doing so separate themselves from how they really feel. It is a divorce from the body. If one cannot live comfortably in one's body, how can one experience life fully?

Another Self-portrait

Self-Portrait (Head & Shoulders)
Acrylic on Canvas, 30x24"
www.davida-art.com

This self-portrait is one of two pieces. It, too, acknowledges the studio with the halogen work light in front of the venetian blinds in the background. I will write more about this and the next piece when I post it.