During my first “Pieces of Me” exhibition, a visitor enquired where I was in my journal pages. “I kept looking for you!” she said. I told her I was there almost everywhere in them… in fact, many female figures whether they be young or old, carried some aspect I wished to embody. Thus far, I have enjoyed being the madonna-like figure in one collage; the disillusioned blue-haired punk rocker or the noble-chinned Joan of Arc in others. I feel it would be so boring if all the images of myself looked consistently like me. For this and other reasons I relish making a whole series of mutable “me’s” through my journal pages.
I don’t know about you, but when I was young, and even now, I envisioned myself as the lead figures of my favourite cartoons, novels, films and even paintings. Whether it be the winter-white, ruby-lipped princess Snow White; the plain, austere Jane Eyre; the buxom, athletic “Tomb Raider” Lara Croft or the tragic medieval Lady of Shalott in William Waterhouse’s famous painting – at some point in my life, a part of me has retained a small fragment of their beings within my soul to this very day. As you can imagine, this naturally makes for a very schizophrenic visual existence imaginatively! Stereotypes or not, these images of women have had a profound effect on my being. I love that my collage stories allow me to physically manifest these invisible sources of my spirit; after all, they’ve determined how I perceive myself and the woman I have strived to become (or not). Oddly enough in the past when I viewed these revered female role models, in my imagination, I always managed to block out that I was a browned-skinned, mixed race girl/woman in reality. In effect, I became a chameleon willing to take on the characteristics of whatever media type was presented to me… for a long time, I allowed myself to believe I was white.
Although some of the characters in my collage journal pages may be white and beautiful as the interviewer Liana Voia pointed out in her January 2013 interview with me, I always work hard to find a wide variety of character types for my journal pages. I’ve rustled through more than a hundred magazines for weeks and months to find them. Throughout these searches, I’m continually surprised to find very few models of colour. There continues to be a prevalence of white models or white models portraying woman of other ethnicities in them – it’s quite a curious thing. While this glaring absence continually thwarts my efforts to include women from around the globe in my work, it has also given me the opportunity to be more creative and made me more persistent about finding them. I’m always thrilled to uncover that coveted image of a model who looks like she may be of South Asian, Japanese, Chinese, Middle Eastern, African, etc. descent. I especially love it when I find a model who appears to be a hybrid of many cultures – after all, we’re all genetically-speaking from the same family!* Each time I find a model of colour I save her for a special role in one of my collage narratives. Here are a couple of stories I’d like to share with you …
A Supreme Opportunity…
“Supreme Beings” was a story I really wanted to explore through collage. You may be aware of that saying that to some people, all people of colour look alike? Well, I had this idea in mind when creating this piece that dealt with my becoming part of Diana Ross’s famous musical group the Supremes. When I was young, it never occurred to me to compare my two younger sisters and I to Diana Ross’s musical Motown trio. In fact, during the time we had to portray them (the mid 1970’s), we hadn’t even known of the group or heard their big hit “Stop in the Name of Love” which we had to perform! But our local priest and some female church goers involved in our drama club sure thought we were a shoe-in for them! Because we didn’t want to disappoint them, my sisters and I reluctantly agreed to portray the singers all the while feeling the impending doom that comes with stage fright! I only realized years later … oh yeah, we were like three mini Supremes to those kindly meaning white folks at our church! It’s a good thing that we hadn’t realized the extent of Ross’s super stardom because the pressure to perform would’ve been even more excruciating! Another funny thing about this piece is that I always have big debates about who the model in this collage is. Many think its super model Naomi Campbell, but honest to God, it’s not her all! In perusing fashion magazines, I’ve discovered the creative ingenuity of photographers who have this amazing gift (like the great painters before them) of being able to present just the right model who’s able to evoke multiple female archetypes in one character/shot. This can stir up so many interesting histories and connotations within a viewer; it makes a story so much more exciting. I look for these kinds of characters when I collage, too. Anyway, it was great to uncover this 1960’s musically-inspired photo shoot focusing on a woman of colour.
A Ghostly Blast from the Past…
“Fukushima, Hiroshima, Nagasaki” (see top of page) , took me six months to complete because I had a hard time finding the right woman for the piece. At first I found a wonderful image of an old Japanese lady I really wanted to use but I had difficulties integrating her into the piece. I wanted her for the part because I felt I required a character that looked like she had survived the atomic bombings. I believed it would lend a more poignant air to the work. The young pensive girl I eventually chose, and initially kept disregarding, was on my work table for months until one day when I began to view her in a new light. I loved that her white face makeup echoed that of the traditional Japanese Geisha. It lent her both a contemporary and classical air thus making her a product of both the past and the present. I liked too that the makeup made her look ghostly pale as though she was an apparition from the past sent to warn us. When I placed her amongst the surrounding fragments everything seemed to fall into place.
This piece is very special to me. As a young girl, I was devastated to learn of the World War II bombings of Japan. To me it was simply inhumane that the powers that be would premeditate such a ghastly act upon another culture. When a twenty-something friend of mine pointed out she’d never learned of this war time atrocity at school, I was saddened and outraged. Some people say the past should be left alone… but remembering can also be such an important learning tool. While creating this piece, I hoped that it would strike the hearts of those with Japanese ancestry as well and also wished that it would spark discussion of the eeriness and irony of the present-day Fukushima nuclear disaster. If only I could tell you more right now of all the changes the dropping of those atomic bombs made on Japanese culture even aesthetically – it’s so profound. During my latest “Pieces of Me III’ exhibition, I was touched when the first visitors to the show were two elderly Asian men… one dragging the other by the arm, hobbling into the exhibition space and heading directly towards this piece where they stopped to reflect; exchanged a few words and then quietly left. I wish I knew what they said. It made creating the piece so worthwhile for me. It was a sign that what I made mattered to someone.
As usual, I’ve gabbed over my blog page limit! I hope you enjoyed and were inspired by this brief interlude about how I select characters for my pieces. I was wondering too, if you pick characters from magazines for your visual journal pages or collages does their physical type or social or cultural history matter to you? Do you pick ones that stand in for you visually now (ie. same age, physical type, etc.) or do you choose ones that are more ideal looking? Or perhaps you choose them for other reasons… some of you may avoid choosing people altogether! Whatever you do, I’d love to hear your strategies, too.
* Note: Confused about her family’s mixed race (Eurasian) origins, in her book: “The Juggler’s Children” author Carolyn Abraham uses the latest DNA technologies to determine who her ancestors really were. The juggler in the title refers to one of her great-great grandfathers! It’s an absolutely fascinating, insightful read.
PLEASE NOTE: From time to time, I may be posting my blog on a Monday instead of Sunday. Things are getting a bit hectic around here on the weekends with house showings (we’re selling and moving!) hence the delay… my apologies for posting a little later.
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