By Christine Lavosky
This piece came about over a long period of time beginning with it’s strange conception. I was in a camera store in my hometown waiting the usual half hour for the single old man that worked there to come out with my film development form; just wandering about, passing the time. I came across a stack of picture on a glass counter towards the back. They were all neatly stacked there, all except for one which was on the ground faced down with shoe smudges on the back. It looked pretty neglected. I picked it up and this decrepit but smiling old Italian woman stared back at me. For some reason, although she was by no means beautiful I couldn’t tear my eyes away from her, her perfect blend of sadness, resignation to her situation (I assume by her night gown and balloon that she was in the hospital though she appears to be in a car) and the attempt to make the photographer happy by forcing a smile intrigued me greatly. She obviously has very little strength, but she didn’t seem embittered by this condition. She seemed accepting and still willing to try the little she could manage to bring joy to those around her. I knew I just had to have this picture. So I just took it.
My original plan was to go for sort of a juxtaposition effect. Many conventionally beautiful women are drawn in pastels because pastels, having the powdering consistency of makeup, lend themselves to these types of portraits. So my plan was to make a statement on this woman’s different, more subtle sort of beauty by drawing her in pastels. And I with this idea with her nightgown, balloon and hair, but then I got some artist ADD and accepted the other ideas coming to me. To show her multi-dimensionality in controlling her pain and replacing it with the little joy she could muster I drew half her face in pencil to show her attempt to seem like everything was fine and normal and the right side of her face in dark charcoal to show what it truly going on physically and emotionally. I projected the illness of Alzheimer’s onto her since I didn’t know what illness she really had and this is one of the most emotionally jarring illness old age causes. I then cut some of my mother’s old photograph slides out of their frames and stitched them onto the woman’s face with thread purposely very badly to show the disorganization and “loosely stitched” nature of her memories.
Christine Lavosky is a Writing, Literature and Publishing Sophomore from Northern New Jersey. In addition to being a writer for Isis she is the editor-in-chief of a visual art and literature magazine currently in its infancy, The Emerson Eye. In her free moments she loves knitting somewhat lopsided hats and frolicking through The Garden!
This piece came about over a long period of time beginning with it’s strange conception. I was in a camera store in my hometown waiting the usual half hour for the single old man that worked there to come out with my film development form; just wandering about, passing the time. I came across a stack of picture on a glass counter towards the back. They were all neatly stacked there, all except for one which was on the ground faced down with shoe smudges on the back. It looked pretty neglected. I picked it up and this decrepit but smiling old Italian woman stared back at me. For some reason, although she was by no means beautiful I couldn’t tear my eyes away from her, her perfect blend of sadness, resignation to her situation (I assume by her night gown and balloon that she was in the hospital though she appears to be in a car) and the attempt to make the photographer happy by forcing a smile intrigued me greatly. She obviously has very little strength, but she didn’t seem embittered by this condition. She seemed accepting and still willing to try the little she could manage to bring joy to those around her. I knew I just had to have this picture. So I just took it.
My original plan was to go for sort of a juxtaposition effect. Many conventionally beautiful women are drawn in pastels because pastels, having the powdering consistency of makeup, lend themselves to these types of portraits. So my plan was to make a statement on this woman’s different, more subtle sort of beauty by drawing her in pastels. And I with this idea with her nightgown, balloon and hair, but then I got some artist ADD and accepted the other ideas coming to me. To show her multi-dimensionality in controlling her pain and replacing it with the little joy she could muster I drew half her face in pencil to show her attempt to seem like everything was fine and normal and the right side of her face in dark charcoal to show what it truly going on physically and emotionally. I projected the illness of Alzheimer’s onto her since I didn’t know what illness she really had and this is one of the most emotionally jarring illness old age causes. I then cut some of my mother’s old photograph slides out of their frames and stitched them onto the woman’s face with thread purposely very badly to show the disorganization and “loosely stitched” nature of her memories.
Christine Lavosky is a Writing, Literature and Publishing Sophomore from Northern New Jersey. In addition to being a writer for Isis she is the editor-in-chief of a visual art and literature magazine currently in its infancy, The Emerson Eye. In her free moments she loves knitting somewhat lopsided hats and frolicking through The Garden!