I’m basking in the after glow of a wonderful weekend on Cape Cod. I whole-heartily enjoyed the flora, fauna and folk of New England. Everywhere I turned I saw hydrangeas so blue you’d think they couldn’t be real, roses, peonies, lily’s of all varieties, red maples and vegetable gardens where I munched on snap peas off the vine and picked a salad for 15. I saw squirrels, a tortoise, a possum (north America’s only marsupial), ducks and a robin redbreast – all to a sound track of crows, woodpeckers and other flying warblers. After walking and talking on rocky beaches, we swam in the cold, greenish water of the north Atlantic and in the warmer, squishy bottomed, fresh water of a nearby lake.
The purpose of the trip was to join a group of women who were in Vassar College’s class of ’69, Vassar’s last all women’s class. We gather each year at the end of June, descending on large clapboard Cape Cod home that has been in the family since the 1800’s. Here we reconnect, eat, drink, swim and be merry arriving from California, Florida, Wisconsin, Chicago, Boston, Pennsylvania, Quebec, upstate New York, Beirut and the Virgin Islands. This year there were 15 of us sleeping on couches and blow up mattresses and in all the bedrooms of the sprawling house.
We are a powerful group of women – no strangers to fame, fortune, great accomplishment and success of all kinds. We are also no strangers to the ups and down of relationships, careers, health, parenthood, love, loss, finances and the grace to share the journey.
One of us, who has been honored for contributions in her field, told us the institution she is connected with has commissioned an artist to paint her portrait. She described sitting for it and showed us a photo. There she is, in a formal setting, sitting at her desk. She pointed out the details that she had wanted included: a photo of her first, now deceased, husband; a small porcelain pig sitting on her desk (she collects pigs), a Celtic symbol of woman power, a shelf of books written by her mentor and various other personal details that matter to her. It was a beautiful painting. The artist had captured his subject’s natural loving radiance. She glowed. When I mentioned this, she nodded.
I wondered how I would want to be painted. What would I want in my portrait? Where would I want to be? Which people, things, and symbols would I want to include and what would I wear? Would I be sitting, standing, paddle boarding? I know there would be a violin, the sea, my dogs, Lily, a sailboat and more. I hope that I would glow.
How would you want to be painted? If you could pick a handful of details to go in your painting – what would they be? How does the world see you, how do you want to be seen and, more importantly, how do you see yourself?
In Barcelona several years ago, I went to the Fondacion Miro – a museum dedicated to the work of Joan Miro (April 20,1893 – December 25,1983), a world renowned Spanish Catalan painter, sculptor, and ceramist from Barcelona. Toward the end of his long life and career, he painted large white canvases on which he placed a small assortment of symbols, always a combination of – the sun, a blue sky, a flower/woman/ and a star. Each painting was different but all contained each of these four elements as though he had distilled everything in the world down to this.
As with thinking about my portrait I wondered then what elements would be left if I distilled my life down to 4 or 5 things. What would be on my canvas would also be in my portrait.
No one is painting a portrait of me, yet, and I’m not sure that I’m going to get around to painting my homage to Joan Mire on canvas, yet thinking about my short list of symbols, like asking what I’d want included in my portrait, helps me hone in on what I love and who I truly am.
What’s left after everything else evaporates? What are the gold nuggets after a lifetime of panning in the stream? How do you get to the essence of a person – of you?
I am asking myself, my clients and you to imagine that someone wants to paint your portrait and that you get to decide how you will be portrayed – will you be a Picasso or a Renoir or a ????
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