If there is one positive thing I can think of that helps us through these weeks of anguish, it is the emotional and practical support provided by those close to us, our family, friends and community.

Human goodness, in all shapes and forms. I’ll try, then, to focus this week on humans, on portraits that speak to the strength of the sitter, or their relationship with the artist, the reaction they rouse in those portraying them, the way they provoke the creation of something more than just the semblance of a face.

Portraiture in painting was historically meant to depict those in power, or the rich who could pay the artist, focused primarily on some idealized representation conveying status. Eventually portraiture turned to depict all kinds of sitters, and went beyond likeness, introducing novel ways to convey a psychological truth rather than a more or less photorealist likeness of the face.

Today we have artists who do both, creating the likeness as well as going beyond it. The work that comes to my mind first in this regard is that of Cayce Zavaglia.

Originally trained as a painter she left the studio because of problems with the toxicity of oil paints and solvents involved. Instead she started to photograph her family and friends, and developed a form of (her terminology) renegade embroidery. She stitches the facial topography on pastel colored Belgian linen, creating a low relief resembling the brushstrokes of her former paintings, a tapestry of color blends from which a clear portrait emerges.

The craft is amazing, the portraits appealing. But the truly interesting part of her work comes from the accidentally discovered interest of the backside of the embroidery, the verso, which reveals the messy bits and pieces of the cotton, silk and wool threads employed, dissolving the likeness but putting a more lively substance in its place. There are loose ends, potential for unraveling, but also a sense of mobility, flux, paths that can be chosen or abandoned.

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Recently, she has returned to painting, using the discovery of those backside portraits as a template for larger works in acrylic. (The embroidered portraits are rather small and delicate.)

I am taken by the creativity, the craft, the openness to discovery and the flexibility to switch between media in Zavaglia’s work. What truly impresses me, though, is how the push to depict, the inner drive to make art is not deadened by obstacles. The demands of a body to be protected from toxins, the demands of raising children, curtailing time and space, led to an ingenious switch to portable work and embrace of people close to her as models rather than as a hindrance to her artistic practice. There is real ingenuity here about both the focus and the nature of the process.

Not surprisingly, when I look in the mirror I feel like I see my own verso, the marks of the upheaval of these weeks. It will right itself. I’ll be moving to San Francisco next week for some months to be there when my son comes out of hospital, wheelchair-bound for many weeks. I plan on continuing to blog, but it may be intermittent at the start.

Below is an interview with the artist:

“petrified and totally excited”

All photographs above of work by the artist. Montage below from my own work on altered portraiture, from some years back.

Music today are Beethoven variations on a Mozart theme – Men who feel the call of love – let’s make that into humans who feel the offer of love. Connection. All that matters.