I Pretended to Be Somebody

"I Pretended to Be Somebody" mixed media on BFK Rives printmaking paper, 22 x 18.  Available here and at Artfinder.

Here we are, dear reader, off and running in the studio in the wild, untamed new year!   Can you feel it?  The wide open potential of all you could do with a blank calendar...oh, the places we could (and should and WILL) go. First up on the calendar (May) is a workshop with the incredible Jesse Reno, this time in his own studio here in Portland.  wowzers.

"I pretended to be somebody I wanted to be and I finally became that person.  Or he became me.  Or we met at some point."  CARY GRANT as quoted by Cheryl Strayed in Tiny Beautiful Things.

I Pretended to Be Somebody

I'm not at all sure how it happened, but over time I've begun inhabiting the person I aspire to be (Strayed) while also being the awkward (and sometimes uncertain) person I know that I am.  And, like Grant, somewhere along the way I met myself and it all felt like (and indeed became) me.

Is it like this for you as well?  

• I pretend I know what I want to paint until suddenly I am painting what I know.
• I pretend to be confident in a blue tutu until the blue tutu is less confident than I am.
• My heart slips its casing and pretends to be unafraid until I am unafraid to love fearlessly and without limits.
• I go ahead and do the thing I am afraid to do until the thing is clearly nothing to fear and I am smiling at it.

Perhaps I am just describing the daily mustering of a deeply philosophical introvert.  And maybe Cary Grant was also of that ilk. And maybe this "pretending" is more like just a willingness to do what I think I cannot until I actually can.  But it does seem to me that each of us can ultimately become what we aspire to be if we just try it on long enough.  Which means trying things on (I can see my sister nodding knowingly, having advised me for years to try things on rather than ordering online in hopes things will fit)  and resisting the desire to make assumptions.  Or maybe do make assumptions - that you can do this thing, that you will be successful, that you are worth the risk.

I believe in YOU, dear reader!  Let's go try things on....

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About the painting - watercolor underpainting on BFK Rives Printmaking Paper (which feels delicate and smooth but takes water like a champ) with acrylic, gesso and walnut ink on top.  Liberal spritzing and blotting  of wet paint for texture.  The serendipitous red mark on her shoulder is the watercolor paint bleeding through when water was applied.   Horizontal lines courtesy of blue painter's tape applied temporarily during one of the layers.  I'm not a fan of taped or stapled edges on paper, so the back of this piece received a liberal coating of black gesso to add heft and keep the paper from warping while wet.