Without natural light, her apartment became quite dark and
she found herself stumbling over objects as she clumsily made her way to a
lamp. Most of the objects were immediately recognizable. The blocky thing on
which she had just bruised her shin was a stack of art books that she had been
intending to relocate to her bookcase. The tentacle-like object that seemed to
wrap itself around her ankle was an overly long and offensively brightly
colored scarf she had received as a gift from an aunt and had forgotten to
return. Her sock covered foot landed on something smooth and slick and she
could not bring to mind what familiar object it might be. Being unnerved by the
presence of this unidentifiable object she jumped toward the lamp and turned it
on. She looked back to see what horrifying thing had caused her to panic and
found that it was a large sketch pad, largely unused over a number of years. It
must have been hiding under her futon and probably became dislodged when she
removed the mattress from the futon during the previous night.
She picked up the sketchbook and carried it with her to the table. She sat down again and began perusing the sketches inside while finishing her soup. She had purchased this book in junior high school and that was evident by the sketches she found within. There were lots of poorly rendered flowers, birds and horses and some faces in various states of incompletion. She flipped through the pages aimlessly until she opened to a page with 2 portraits. Both were fairly complete and well-executed aside from the lack of a mouth on one. When Sarah saw them, she was tempted to slam the book shut but made an impulse driven decision to leave it open. The page featured two portraits. On the left was a face that readily recognizable as the face of Venus from Sandro Botticelli’s “Birth of Venus”. Across from it was a portrait of a young girl. That portrait stared at her with its blank eyes and its unnaturally smooth surface where the mouth should have been. Sarah closed her eyes and remembered the still and sunny summer morning she had spent drawing this portrait of herself when she was young. She thought that morning could be accurately described as the very moment in which her childhood expired and she was heaved into young womanhood. Her mother had been diligent about having “the talk” with Sarah and had explained that her body would be changing in ways that might seem frightening unless she was made aware of their imminent arrival. THAT change didn’t occur until several months later, in the fall of her 13th year. The change that came to stay on this particular morning was the knowledge that she was not pretty.
Until that morning, she was yet cocooned in that age where a person’s views of themselves and their world are formed mainly by what happens within the walls of their home, the age when the Truth of the Family supersedes the truth of the world. Her mother said she was beautiful and it must be so because her mother had said it. It made no matter that girls at school made fun of the way she dressed or braided her pig tails. Her mother said she was beautiful and the discussion ended there. She recalled sitting in her bedroom on the bench of the depression-era vanity table that had once belonged to her grandmother. She sat and stared at her reflection in the vanity mirror in that morning light until she felt she had memorized each curve and line of her face. As she began to draw the curves and lines of her portrait, the drawing felt foreign under her hand. The shapes and lines were not at all like the lines and curves and shadings she used when copying the beautiful portraits composed by her favorite artists. She stopped her work on the self-portrait and retrieved a large art book from her bookcase. She opened to the page that had her favorite drawing subject, a detail of Sandro Boticelli’s “the Birth of Venus” that featured only the face of Venus in close-up. She had drawn this face so many times she could almost do it by memory.
She decided to attempt an experiment to ascertain the reason that drawing her own portrait felt so strange under her hand. She would draw one feature of the familiar Venus and then the same feature of her own and note the differences in line, shape and shading needed to capture both. First she drew the shape of Venus’ face. That face was long, angular and pleasantly heart-shaped . She crossed her pen to the other side of the page and drew her own face shape, less like a beautifully symmetrical heart and more like a ripe, round pumpkin. Next she tackled Venus’ Flowing hair. Obviously her braided pigtails required a different hand than the flowing tresses of Venus. Venus’ nose was long and slender while hers was short, slightly wide and turned up at the end. She drew Venus’ eyes, widely spaced and delicately, almond shaped then she drew her own large, round and set close together. There was little shading necessary on the portrait of Venus as she had smooth, even skin pulled tautly across high, elegant cheekbones. Sarah’s skin was blotched with both freckles and the beginnings of teen aged acne and stretched over a moon shaped face lacking in definition or refinement. Lastly she tackled the mouths. Venus’ lips were perfect and even. A glowing pink bow-shaped, a mouth that (she imagined) could speak pretty, perfectly chosen words in golden tones. She glanced again into the mirror of the dressing table. She saw that her own lips were thin, beige like her skin, chapped from the sun, slightly askew on the left side and habitually pursed tightly together. No pretty words or golden tones would ever consent to pass through a mouth like that. She understood now why the drawing of her portrait had felt so queer to her. For as long as she could remember she had worked at chronicling pretty things with her art. She drew pretty, she painted pretty. Pretty felt natural to her hands. Her own face however, held no prettiness. She swallowed that truth. It dissolved within her and spread it’s dark factuality throughout her body. She chased that bitter pill with the knowledge that her mother, in telling her she was beautiful, had been lying to her for 13 years. She looked out her bedroom window and was surprised to find the sun still shining and the birds still singing. Everything within had changed in that previous moment. For the rest of her life, everything would be categorized as either before or after that moment. How could the outside world continue on as if nothing had happened?
She picked up the sketchbook and carried it with her to the table. She sat down again and began perusing the sketches inside while finishing her soup. She had purchased this book in junior high school and that was evident by the sketches she found within. There were lots of poorly rendered flowers, birds and horses and some faces in various states of incompletion. She flipped through the pages aimlessly until she opened to a page with 2 portraits. Both were fairly complete and well-executed aside from the lack of a mouth on one. When Sarah saw them, she was tempted to slam the book shut but made an impulse driven decision to leave it open. The page featured two portraits. On the left was a face that readily recognizable as the face of Venus from Sandro Botticelli’s “Birth of Venus”. Across from it was a portrait of a young girl. That portrait stared at her with its blank eyes and its unnaturally smooth surface where the mouth should have been. Sarah closed her eyes and remembered the still and sunny summer morning she had spent drawing this portrait of herself when she was young. She thought that morning could be accurately described as the very moment in which her childhood expired and she was heaved into young womanhood. Her mother had been diligent about having “the talk” with Sarah and had explained that her body would be changing in ways that might seem frightening unless she was made aware of their imminent arrival. THAT change didn’t occur until several months later, in the fall of her 13th year. The change that came to stay on this particular morning was the knowledge that she was not pretty.
Until that morning, she was yet cocooned in that age where a person’s views of themselves and their world are formed mainly by what happens within the walls of their home, the age when the Truth of the Family supersedes the truth of the world. Her mother said she was beautiful and it must be so because her mother had said it. It made no matter that girls at school made fun of the way she dressed or braided her pig tails. Her mother said she was beautiful and the discussion ended there. She recalled sitting in her bedroom on the bench of the depression-era vanity table that had once belonged to her grandmother. She sat and stared at her reflection in the vanity mirror in that morning light until she felt she had memorized each curve and line of her face. As she began to draw the curves and lines of her portrait, the drawing felt foreign under her hand. The shapes and lines were not at all like the lines and curves and shadings she used when copying the beautiful portraits composed by her favorite artists. She stopped her work on the self-portrait and retrieved a large art book from her bookcase. She opened to the page that had her favorite drawing subject, a detail of Sandro Boticelli’s “the Birth of Venus” that featured only the face of Venus in close-up. She had drawn this face so many times she could almost do it by memory.
She decided to attempt an experiment to ascertain the reason that drawing her own portrait felt so strange under her hand. She would draw one feature of the familiar Venus and then the same feature of her own and note the differences in line, shape and shading needed to capture both. First she drew the shape of Venus’ face. That face was long, angular and pleasantly heart-shaped . She crossed her pen to the other side of the page and drew her own face shape, less like a beautifully symmetrical heart and more like a ripe, round pumpkin. Next she tackled Venus’ Flowing hair. Obviously her braided pigtails required a different hand than the flowing tresses of Venus. Venus’ nose was long and slender while hers was short, slightly wide and turned up at the end. She drew Venus’ eyes, widely spaced and delicately, almond shaped then she drew her own large, round and set close together. There was little shading necessary on the portrait of Venus as she had smooth, even skin pulled tautly across high, elegant cheekbones. Sarah’s skin was blotched with both freckles and the beginnings of teen aged acne and stretched over a moon shaped face lacking in definition or refinement. Lastly she tackled the mouths. Venus’ lips were perfect and even. A glowing pink bow-shaped, a mouth that (she imagined) could speak pretty, perfectly chosen words in golden tones. She glanced again into the mirror of the dressing table. She saw that her own lips were thin, beige like her skin, chapped from the sun, slightly askew on the left side and habitually pursed tightly together. No pretty words or golden tones would ever consent to pass through a mouth like that. She understood now why the drawing of her portrait had felt so queer to her. For as long as she could remember she had worked at chronicling pretty things with her art. She drew pretty, she painted pretty. Pretty felt natural to her hands. Her own face however, held no prettiness. She swallowed that truth. It dissolved within her and spread it’s dark factuality throughout her body. She chased that bitter pill with the knowledge that her mother, in telling her she was beautiful, had been lying to her for 13 years. She looked out her bedroom window and was surprised to find the sun still shining and the birds still singing. Everything within had changed in that previous moment. For the rest of her life, everything would be categorized as either before or after that moment. How could the outside world continue on as if nothing had happened?
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