April 7th, 2009

C’est moi, alors!

This is a portrait of me (der) by the portrait artist Alan Dayton, who is doing a series on creative people, lately writers.

As I’ve said previously, some rather remarkable and bizarre things have come my way as a result of publishing a book. One of them is certainly the photo-shoot/interview that Mr. Dayton did for me, and its result, this amazing, rather Gallic-looking painting. Certainly, never before have I sat on my couch in my favourite dress while someone bent over me almost medically, noting aloud the exact colour and striations of my eyes.

I consider myself hugely lucky to have been the object of Alan Dayton’s considerable talent, but I am also quite baffled. Now a portrait of me exists in the world, and, like my stories, I’m not able to follow it around and tell people what it means. I have to trust that viewers of this art will “get it,” whatever *it* is. Because of course, I have even less agency here than I do in my writing; this portrait is really Alan’s creation, and I just provided a little inspiration.

And yet, I do get the opportunity to say something about it, as I’ve been asked to write a mini-essay about the experience of being emportraited for the catalogue. But what will I say? Any ideas? Even though I’m *involved*, I’m still way underqualified to write about art, and never have before.

We’ve been here many times
RR