Tuesday, July 23, 2002

Notes on portraiture

Quite a drawing to live up to but very doable in fact. First shave latitudinally along the scalp. Next super or mega gel longish brush cut straight up to affect a Bert and Ernie Sesame Street look. To obtain that telltale orange skin, apply Q-Tan or similar self-tanning agent. Now somehow figure out how disconnected squarish glasses sit on my nose without the middle bridge support. A funky pair of horizontally striped rainbow-colored pants and a long-sleeved brown tee shirt completes the picture.

So to mimic photographically a portrait drawn by my niece in Crayola washable markers as performance documentation simultaneously reinforces and upends the notion of life imitating art, albeit her art, her perception, her vision however childlike. But why such an elaborate technical process just to recreate an image? Is it vital to incorporate theatrical production to establish a versimilitude when to digitally alter the snapshot could suffice?