Identity

I think a lot of my friends know by now that I have a bit of an arty background - perhaps a couple of university ones don't? I was very close to going to art college at one point in time but honestly, I didn't have the talent or complete passion for it. After two years at university on a 'more academic route' I've confirmed to myself that I am more suited to Art History than creating art myself. Still, from time to time I dabble and return to my old ways - I dip in and out of life drawing classes when my workload isn't too much. Today I found myself creating this (it's not finished yet - whole right side to go - but I think I'm going to leave finishing it for a while). 

I'm not entirely happy with it, as usual - I don't know an artist who is ever completely happy with their work (one eye is definitely larger than the other and I don't think it really resembles me that strongly - bah, self portraits are so hard). 

Still, this is the start of an idea that I have been playing with for a while. There was a painting in the living room of one of my childhood friends that I always fixated upon when I was younger (my art historian roots already forming) - I sadly don't know the title of it or who it was by but I can picture it so clearly even now - it was a profile portrait of a man and he was composed entirely of different flowers e.g. his nose was made of rose petals. I always thought it was so clever. So, since quite a young age, I've always had this idea kicking around about creating faces out of different objects (not just flowers). 

The final aim for this work is to have my whole face covered in different quotes, images, symbols etc. that I think 'sum up' the making of me. For example, next to my eye on the right of the page is the moon, stars and the quote 'Dare to disturb the universe'. I've always had a fascination with the solar system (again this was something I've been attached to from a very young age), then this focus developed in to my awe about the vastness of the universe and power of nature. I thought the quote fitted in that it mentions the universe, but it also has two more links for me. It was the quote I used to structure my retiring speech as head girl to my senior school around, so it has a strong emotional attachment. Also, 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock' was the poem I studied for A Level English Literature - I had one on one classes and they were such a joy - the poem spoke so strongly to me and I really look back on those studies as a time where I grew and found myself. 

The struggle with this work hit me today when I took a break from it. Firstly, it made me start to think the spectacularly frustrating question of 'Who am I?' Didn't I go to university to answer that question? I suspect I might get glimpses in to an answer (I have never felt so comfortable in myself as I do at university) but somehow I think I may have to settle with the fact that it is one of life's maddening unanswerable questions. To even fully know yourself can be hard - I still manage to surprise myself from time to time. Furthermore, you can have the amazing moments of finding those special people who bring things out of you that you didn't know you were capable of. Ahhh, back to the same track, the wonderfully complicated nature of human beings. Another less pressing but still tricky issue is how to depict parts of what make me - my drawing remains at a basic stage - the question of how to depict music or academia is going to be a challenge. Still, I remain hopeful that things will work and I'm not going to come back to this work straight away. I need some time to step back and think about what to do next, I'm just glad I finally got it started.