Thinking of Self-Portraits

I love this quote from Laura Cumming’s wonderful book, A Face to the World, On Self Portraits: “But paintings are fictions, and self-portraits too; there is not a novelist alive who does not believe it possible to enter the mind and voice of someone else, real or imaginary, and the same is true of painters.” I’ve just finished writing a book about New Zealand painter Anna Caselberg, Weaving Golden Air, My Journey With Anna Caselberg, where I tried to enter her “mind and voice” as I was struggling with my sense of self, traveling through cancer. I know that sounds dramatic, but she’s been my companion for the last four years. We all size ourselves up in the mirror, Cumming says, “the way we consult the mirror to question our appearance, rearrange our looks.” She writes about the types of self-portraits. How some painters give themselves to the viewer, others shrink away, hide their eyes, or try to sell their services beckoning you to take a closer look.

Artist Wayne Seyb thinks that one of the pictures of Anna’s paintings he sent me might be a self-portrait. Anna has written “BIMU” on the top left of the painting. He’s not sure what it means. A flower, maybe. Something to do with her time in Australia. The figure is floating on a milky background streaked with blush and gold, very light. A milky cloud. The person is rising out of paint in a way, out of a cactus-shaped brown flower on the left and a blooming red star surrounded by spiky brown leaves, brushstrokes like fur. She seems to be floating up through the air, four hills behind her, off her shoulder. Dark blue, gold interiors. One arm is by her side, the hand in the pocket of her cloak (or gown), the other bent against her chest holding a wide brush? Her face is serene, her eyes open under arched brows. She’s looking off the painting far beyond the frame, her face turned a bit. She’s brushed with the same light apricot as the interior of the pointed marks behind her, arched entrances to the light. All my work weaves in a self-portrait, the embroidery of my life. Isn’t that what Anna’s doing? Her landscape and her escape—getting to know something too closely, like a husband or a view. Anna picks board or watercolor paper to paint on, the frames are rough wood. As close as she can to the elements. As if she’s making sculptures.

In a letter to Wayne not long before she died after her own journey with cancer, she enclosed another self-portrait. Anna is standing, her side to us, her shoulder turned away. Her arm is raised as if she’s drawing in air or waving through an open door. Her hair is pulled back from her face, the oval face of the painter. Her legs are like polished wood, solid, holding the body up, but she’s air already, light as air.

I got my hair cut yesterday. I’m thrilled to have a full head of hair after some months off and on of being hairless. I sat in the chair and Sean clipped and combed, twirled and snipped until I was there in the oval mirror framed in wood on the wall. My own self-portrait robed in a silky shawl. White and mauve orchids were blooming in the salon. The other stylist was trimming a customer’s dark head. They were talking about how expensive apartments are in the city. As we looked at the finished cut, Sean said, “You’re the same,” with delight. “You haven’t changed at all.” I was happy that the person looking back at me was still me.