Sunday, March 22, 2009

Erika's Self Portrait


Our three year old Erika buried herself in our art studio the other day. By "buried" I mean posting a "do not disturb sign", locking the door, blacking-out the windows, and refusing to come out for 24 hours. Occasionally she would make demands on Heather like "More Paper NOW!" and "I'm out of gummy bears, WHERE ARE MY GUMMY BEARS!" Heather gently complied by slipping more art supplies and Haribos under the door. I awoke at 3:00 a.m. and pressed my ear against the studio door. Erika was muttering to herself "no, No, NO!, its just not right" as I heard paper crumpling and falling to the floor.

The next morning, just before I left for work, Erika burst from the studio panting and exhausted from a hard night's work. She was delighted with herself. "I did it, I really did it this time!" she exclaimed. I peered behind her into the art studio and saw literally mounds of scrap paper and empty art pens littered across the floor. In her hand she held her first self-portrait, and her first foray into photorealism. She gently layed it in my hands and stared intently at my eyes waiting for my reaction.

I wept. Just look at the structure of her work. You can almost see her cheek bones and facial muscles laying beneath her semi-translucent skin. The effervescent smile, the glisten in her deep brown eyes, even the faint scar above her left eye from her recent accident were spot-on. I think I'm going to fire her manager and rep her myself. I'm going to be rich!

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