What's in a Face?

Wolf whistles...Scorn...Desire...Adoration...a Mother's Love...Rejection...Swoons.
It starts with the face.

Babies are born looking like their fathers...  so they'll know the child is theirs and won't run off. Well, at least that's what I've heard, and it is certainly true of me and of my own daughter.

What is attractive? Repulsive? Beautiful? Sexy? Attraction is physical, "chemical," intuitive. We respond to what we like. So, most of us are stuck with what we're born with, other "enhance" with products and poisons and knives...to reach an ideal...and that target is always moving.

One man's meat is another man's poison
One man's meat is another man's person

My Mother told me...never trust someone with thin lips, or close-set eyes.

So, What's in a Face?

After all...aren't most of our face comprised of two eyes, two lips, one nose? Are not our faces merely skin stretched [or sagging] over muscle and bone? What's the big deal?

And yet... so much is made of our visual appearance. If you've read my blog, seen my art or know me, you know I have been exploring how our "looks" relate to our own self-image, and the messages we hear and tell ourselves. This collage was originally completed several years ago, soon after I dealt with a slight change to my own face [no one sees it, but it is glaring to me] which altered my impression of myself and others. 

Included in this composition are photos, textures, verbiage, people I know, and many others I don't.
Here are some details. I'm in there somewhere...and I don't look like Kate Moss.

Warsaw Waiter... huh?

Women's faces. Yeah, that's my usual... ["idiom, sir?"] genre. What's with the guy with the curly hair?

A moment to back up. I read a lot. Books, Magazines. I get way too many...

and today, as soon as I stop typing... I am going to go have an "education" day and pick a bunch of the magazines up, go through them once and for all, glean everything I want from them. And then recycle them.

Yeah, I even recycle magazines.
Not by putting them in my art, though... I magazine bomb. I would yarn bomb, or photo bomb...but I can't do everything.

When I go to the library, or doctor, or dentist, or car wash...anywhere magazines are lying around, I innocently plop them down and leave them for someone else to enjoy. And, by the way, nothing trashy. No People, no US, no Star Magazine.

Okay, anyway... I was probably reading Town & Country... or Travel & Leisure... or Conde Nast Traveler. Came across an interesting photo of a fellow, a waiter at a restaurant in some eastern European country. It was NOT Poland, I remember... Maybe it was a "stan" country -Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, or maybe a Baltic state... or Ukraine. Anyway... this dude looked pretty cool. His attire, his hair, his NOSE harkened back to an earlier time. I created his portrait out of junk mail, as usual... but he looked too modern.

I found some crackle glaze... actually created for ceramics. I thought I could create an "Antique" look by creating tiny cracks [this stuff by Modern Masters is great, by the way]. I used to love making ceramics when I was a kid,

and remembered how to use it to my advantage.

I used the glazes [there are a few steps] and rubbed dark brown ink into the cracks... let it settle and then rubbed it off. It worked, and I got the effect I wanted.

My husband makes fun of me and my crazy ideas. But a lifetime of art experimentation, etc. Years of being a display artist, prop designer, pattern maker, sample maker, and all around use-your-noodle, you're clever after all... has me creating and taking risks. I love this guy, he belongs on the wall of someone's library, or in a home filled with antiques [unlike most of my other art...] and yeah, he is definitely NOT from Poland, but I'm a big fan of alliteration. So sue me, title Police.
Here's my Warwaw Waiter - 16x20" mosaic portrait - he's in a wooden frame but it's not shown here:

Sandhi Schimmel Gold's Warsaw Waiter

Try a Little Tenderness

For this portrait, I wanted to capture the vulnerability of a woman in love, the sweetness and femininity. Doesn't my subject look as if she were about to speak? 

Her hand, moving towards her lips...not sure what to say?

 She seems thoughtful and perhaps a bit sad. 

What she needs is assurance and some tender loving care. 

With props to Otis Redding:

Oh, she may be weary
Young girls they do get weary
Wearing that same old shaggy dress, 

But when she gets weary,
Try a little tenderness
You know she's waiting
Just anticipating
For things that she'll never, never, never, never possess,
But while she's there waiting, without them,
Try a little tenderness
It's not just sentimental, no,
She has her grief and care,
But the soft words, they are spoken so gentle,
It makes it easier, easier to bear
You won't regret it,
Some girls they don't forget it
Love is their only happiness,
But it's all so easy
All you gotta do is try, try a little tenderness
All you gotta do is, man, hold her where you want her
Squeeze her, don't tease her, never leave her
Get to her, try, try,
Just try a little tenderness
You got to know how to love her, man, you'll be surprised, man,
You've got to squeeze her, don't tease her, never leave her
You've got to hold her and rub her softly,
Try a little tenderness and watch her groove,
You've gotta to know what to do, man,
Take this advice...

 
Try a Little Tenderness

 

I used white paper with lavender and purple designs for the majority of the face, irridescent tissues for highlight, and my usual - junk mail paper source - for the rest.  

I hate to pick out frames. I always pick out the wrong ones, so I found a creative framer who can come up with interesting combinations of color and texture.

I trust my friend Mary

who put this unusual composition in a silver wood frame, and then in a seafoam textured frame.

It's amazing.

Here's my "gallery on the go" at an art festival in Virginia last year.

The Kindest Cut

Yes, it's me and my scissors again.

I am working on this intricate portrait. As I was going yesterday, I started to think of how many times I cut ONE piece of paper to create the "tiles" I fit together.

1. First, I cut the from the "raw material"- whether it's a postcard, catalog cover, packaging, business card...etc. One hack to separate a block of color from the rest. 
2. Next, as I go through any particular box of colors, I look for the exact shades and CUT a strip.
3. I cut the strip into squares. 
4. That's two cuts - one on each side.
5. Now, some of the pieces are fine as a square, but not too many. If it's good the way it is, it gets glued.
6. But, if I'm going around a curve, there's another cut to make it fit.
7. If it's in a tight spot, it might take another trim or two
8. or another. I counted. Most squares get cut at least once more, many of them three times. Which means I'll glue it down, pick it up, trim it again.

Sure, it's pretty tedious to cut ONE PIECE of paper [and there are hundreds if not thousands included in each piece of work I finish] as many as EIGHT times, just to get it right.

I never repeat the same source of paper next to another - so if you'll look closely, you'll notice bits from that postcard from the neighborhood dentist is next to an old birthday card, next to the Nordstrom catalog cover, next to the insurance salesman's business card, next to a magazine fly card, a movie ticket... and so on. Why? It's just the way I do things.

So, I am somewhat process driven, somewhat image driven, and color is always behind everything.
Check out my work here: http://www.schimmelart.com

The Blogosphere!

So, I got a request for images for a blog. Sometimes I respond, sometimes I don't...depending on the blog. If it looks like an aesthetic fit, them seem legit, and they ask for PERMISSION to use my images, and they PROMISE to add a link back to my site, I say yes.

Am I crazy? Or crazy good?

So the latest, blog, My Modern Metropolis did a short story, but included a lot of pics. Thanks, Alice - that was wonderful.
But then... off to cyberspace! Blogs picked up the story and reblogged it all over the world.

Off it goes. Liked on Facebook, Tweeted. Somehow, Flavorpill picked the My Modern Metropolis story verbatim. On to Tumblr. From there to many other blogs including pretty propaganda and hundreds of others. Most just posted a photo of one of my pieces. Some of them included my name, some got my gender wrong [should it matter?], some got my name totally wrong! Most left my name off... and images are just floating around...

What's your opinion? Should it bother me? I'd love your opinion...