This Portrait of Marylou was commissioned by her son, Nelson, for the occasion of her 80th Birthday. While there were many challenges in the making of this painting, I'm quite pleased with the final result. 

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Nelson and I began our discussions while he was living in Maryland and I in Berlin. I was preparing to move back to the United States after living in Europe for several years. The first issue we were to encounter was one of time. The Portrait had a fixed deadline of February 20, 2011, as it was to be unveiled at Marylou's 80th Birthday Celebration. I would not even be in the States until September 2010. And while five months would ordinarily be adequate to complete one portrait, I was working on two prior commissions, while I went about trying to find an apartment with adequate space to have a Home Painting Studio (in addition to all the other tribulations of moving, setting up a Studio, with lights, easel, computer monitors, tables, etc can take weeks of work).

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Nelson and I met and scheduled the Photo Session with his mother the moment my plane landed in DC. Together, we drove over an hour to the Virginia Suburb where Marylou was living. Making the issue of time all the more pressing, was the fact that Marylou would be leaving Virginia, early the next morning, to spend several weeks with her Daughter in Hawaii. When we arrived at her home, Marylou looked lovely, having had her hair done, and wearing full makeup and a long, elegant, purple satin dress (satin is an extremely easy fabric to render in Oil Paint and a realistic effect happens with minimal work). The only issue was that her Condominium was awash in furniture with virtually no place for me to set up lights and the (enormous) camera I would be using to photograph her, which required a minimum of 6 feet distance. 

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Meeting and then instantly photographing a total stranger for something as personal as a portrait is already less than ideal. Add to that, the fact that Nelson and I had to relocate much of Marylou's furniture into adjacent rooms. As we did this, I performed the Herculean Task of "casually" chatting with Marylou, attempting to put her at ease, while frantically attempting to gain some window of insight into her true character, that I might incorporate it into the portrait. Marylou was quickly growing exhausted from the stress of having her photo taken, as seeing well as her orderly home turned upside down. 

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Nelson had only TWO requests about the portrait: that I include one of his mother's hands and that it not be wider than 20 inches in width. Those two parameters already meant that the portrait would not be a simple 'Head and Shoulders' composition, and that Marylou would be about half of life size. One thing about Marylou's character which was immediately apparent, was the role her Faith in GOD had played in her life. Her home was filled with Religious Iconography, including a beautiful hand painted Wooden Crucifix, and an exquisite image of The Virgin Mary, in the Naïve Style of Painting, of which Marylou's own Sister was a noted practitioner.

 

 

Ordinarily, when photographing someone for a portrait, I will first take 'Test Shots" with a variety of wardrobe, lighting, and poses, to zero in on the most flattering portrayal I can achieve. But on this day, despite the fact that I still hadn't gotten any deep insight into Marylou's character, and taking into account the space limitations, as well as sensing Marylou's growing fatigue, I put the lights in the only place I could and positioned Marylou on a simple Chaise and took approximately 200 photos before she was ready to stop. Although we'd initially spoken about my painting Marylou in "Undefined Space" (meaning a plain background), I made certain to get Reference Photos of the Virgin Mary Painting and asked Marylou to mimic the hand gesture of the Virgin, "just in case" I decided to go with a more elaborate composition.  Already, the idea of casting Marylou as a sort of "Mirror" of the Virgin Mary, was giving me some inspiration.

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After Nelson and I put all or Marylou's furniture back into place, the three of us drove to the home of Nelson's younger Brother, to have dinner with his family. I was beyond impressed with Nelson's two young Nephews, who were very close in age (I'm guessing 8 and 10) yet had not one whiff of Sibling Rivalry. The entire family are highly intelligent (Nelson and his Brother are Professors and one of his Sisters is a Doctor), but I wasn't prepared to have two Pre-Teen Boys educate me on American Civil War History and the various Weapons used by the Soldiers.

During that most enjoyable evening, I really began to understand who Marylou truly was...and she was quite a remarkable woman. She told me many stories from her life, growing up in Colombia, a job she loved as a young Television Reporter and how she gave it up to raise her children. She also told me about some very tough times, like when her husband essentially abandoned her with 4 children, and how she had to fill the void he left behind. Through it all, Marylou spoke again and again about the importance of her faith in GOD and how she would pray to the Virgin Mary for strength.

 

Marylou's stories, as well as the impression of the entire family, reverberated through my head as I sat alone that night, reviewing the many photographs I had taken of her. And while the images I'd gotten were perfectly adequate, and Marylou looked lovely and relaxed in most of them, I found myself looking PAST her in the images and thinking about the many (distracting) elements caught in those photographs which were not intended to be part of the painting. Most notably, a corner table, awash with family photos. 

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I had the unshakable feeling that i couldn't possibly adequately portray Marylou, without somehow referencing the central role her children had played in forging her character. I phoned Nelson to see if we might have a SECOND photo session after his mother returned from Hawaii. He said it might be a month before we could coordinate it. And even though that was quite a considerable amount of time to lose, I didn't feel right beginning a painting from a compromised concept. And so, I waited. 

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The Second Photo Session was much easier, as I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted: Marylou sitting on her beautiful, antique Humped Back Sofa with Burgundy Crushed Velvet upholster and rolled wooden arms. Behind her, I positioned selected Family Photos on a table, underneath a Tiffany Style Table Lamp. On the wall, behind Marylou was to be that Naïve Painting of the Virgin Mary, and again, I wanted Marylou's hand to mimic the very specific gesture of the Virgin in the painting.

I'd even asked Marylou if she had anything similar in Color or Style to what the Virgin was wearing (a Dark Blue-Green robe with long dramatic sleeves). She said she did, in fact have a dress, which met that description, which a friend had made by hand out of an elaborate lace. When I saw the dress, I immediately knew I had gotten myself into TROUBLE, because it was BRIGHT BLUE and incredibly detailed... I knew that dress would be extremely complicated to paint, yet I didn't want to disappoint Marylou, nor make her feel uncomfortable. So I said nothing. 

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When I got home that night to review  the nearly 300 Photographs I'd taken that day, I was DEVASTATED to encounter a technical issue, that I still, to this day, don't fully understand. But the long and the short of it is that I had only low resolution thumbnails, but the full 5,616 × 3,744 resolution of the  21 Megapixel  Canon 5D Mark II camera, were not available. I had a mini-panic attack and ate the entire contents of my Refrigerator trying to think HOW I was going to tell Nelson (and Marylou) that we needed to schedule a THIRD Photo Session. Amazingly, they were BOTH very understanding and we arranged to meet up again a few days later. 

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This time, we were ALL seasoned Pros, and Nelson and I had gotten Furniture Moving down to a Science. 

Even though the thumbnails from that Second Photo Session appeared to be very much what I'd hoped for, I decided to take the technical difficulties as a sign from the Universe that I needed to reevaluate my concept. And once I'd made that decision, i immediately had my 'Eureka!" moment, where the entire Theme and symbolism of the Portrait became crystal clear to me. 

Rather than seating seating Marylou on a sofa, I decided to position her standing in front of the mirror which hung over the fireplace, with those Family Photos adorning the Mantle. Reflected in the Mirror was to be that Painting of the Virgin Mary 

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