Portraits
This entry was posted on 11/4/2006 5:26 PM and is filed under uncategorized.
| One of my many Projects on the list of things to come is to gather together all the portraits that have been made of me by my students. I am, of course, flattered that they are inspired to create an unprompted portrait of me and I am so very amused and intrigued by the emphasis that they put on my physical attributes. For younger students—those in K-4—the scale of the elements can be wildly lopsided towards my earrings and my blue flame Fleuvog's.
Portraits from younger grades often come in group thank you notes from a class. However, last spring I was in a middle school classroom in Flushing, Queens, working on the Scottish Play. I was in a particularly tough classroom. The "behavioral issues" in that room were the direct cause of the classroom teacher sometimes literally putting his head down on his desk during one of my sessions because he was so exhausted by their antics. It was often hard to tell if I was having any impact at all in that classroom.
On the final day, as I was leaving the classroom a girl from that class—one that had been relatively inconspicuous over the course of my 8 sessions in the room—caught me as I was about to reach the door. She said, "Here." And she gave me this portrait.
Not only was I touched, but the qualities that she captured, down to my nearly-always rolled up sleeves of my button-up shirts were pretty spot on. I love that she saw my eyes as big and open and that the expression on my face is both peaceful and somehow inquisitive at the same time.
I wish that she could know how much I appreciate it. |
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