Well, we knew it would be late...! I've been busy finishing work to be included in a show in Atlanta, for a gallery that's new to me. (Very exciting!) It was my year to come up with the Christmas/holiday card, and I just couldn't make time for it until the last minute. We've had a "Noir" wall calendar this year, so it's not much of a guess that the garish film posters it's illustrated with inspired the direction of the card. Rather than taking the precious time to create something from whole cloth this go 'round, I adapted the Belgian (?) poster made to promote the 1946 version of "The Killers".
I needed a little more room to work, so I expanded the image on the left side and the top. Ava Gardner's dress is blue in the original, but I adjusted it to a more Christmas-y green. And as I could not live with her pink ankle-strap sandals, I likewise tweaked their color. I gave the film's producing credit to Nicholas - O'Donnell+Little=O'Dittle - whose silhouette looms ominously in the background. And the director is a certain "P. Prévert", a reference to G's sometime performance persona, Penny/Prudence Prévert. The actor credits are a play on our first and middle names; G's actual first name is Eugenia, if you didn't know. I tried to find fonts that were close to the original, though I had to individually "shred" the ends of the letters in the main title. Then there's our usual gender reversals; I always look great as a redhead, I must say. And G looks particularly studly here. I think her masculine allure is only enhanced by that mustache, borrowed from none other than Clark Gable.
Last month, Gigi and I participated in a "pop-up" at the Portland Art Museum as part of the Portland Book Festival (formerly Wordstock). Each year, the festival is a total riot of publishers and authors from all over the country - and often beyond - and a great crush of book lovers. It's always great fun. This go 'round, it was also a lovely way to celebrate the anniversary of the publication of our book, The Untold Gaze; its "pub date" came too late last year to be included in the festival, so we were very happy to be invited this year.
Each pop-up is presented in front of a particular painting or sculpture in the museum's collection, a work of art the organizers believe would make an apt pairing with the literary offering. Since it's always been one of my favorite pieces in the permanent collection, I asked for and was granted permission to perform in front of Boucher's Portrait of a Lady.
We had a really lovely turn-out for the event. Gigi gave a brief introduction to the book, then introduced writer and publisher of Forest Avenue Press, Laura Stanfill, who read her wonderful story from The Untold Gaze, "All This." Then, as the applause continued for Laura, our violinist, Tomoki Martens, came in from the next gallery and began the introduction to the French edition of Gluck's famous lament for Orpheus, "J'ai perdu mon Eurydice" from Orphée et Eurydice. Then I swept into the room and did what I did. I did it with a cold, no chance to warm up, and on only four hours of sleep - trying to finish the damn costume! - but I think I didn't really embarrass myself too much. Here's my part of the event:
(Video of the full event below.)
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Poor innocents, they don't know what monster is on the horizon! (Actually, they're blocking my planned pathway; I had to make a loop around them.)
My costume was actually not quite finished. And I should have had panniers underneath. As a last minute effort to give the thing a
little more volume, I added a full petticoat but, since that added volume in the front as well, I looked just a bit... pregnant...!
We couldn't actually do our event in front of the Boucher as there was a display case in the way. The painting is just out of view on the left.
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Portrait of a Lady, by François Boucher, circa 1760-70.
The aria I sang is contemporary with the painting; the opera debuted in 1762, the French edition debuted in 1774. And while my costume was roughly contemporary as well, it was really more influenced by Fragonard's fantasy portraits than by the Boucher. And then, it was really more designed to represent some sort of stage costume of the period.
Three of Fragonard's "fantasy portraits" with their anachronistic Medici collars, circa 1769.
Before I began: fifteen yards of not-quite-silk. The play of color and texture is wonderful; it shimmers. Sadly, the lighting in the gallery totally subdued that aspect.
My winged and wired lace collar in progress. Such an oddly shaped construction, it won't sit properly on any flat surface.
What are these...?
Turns out that they're sheets of printer paper, brushed with a little paint. Cut up, rolled, and glued, they formed the material for my wig.
Make-up test. I didn't get my mouth half so nice on the day of the actual performance.
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Probably my favorite picture from the event; what can that poor child be thinking...?
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And here's the video of the full event.
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Photographs courtesy of Stephen Rutledge, Gigi Little, Laura Stanfill, Diane Prokop, video by Tracy Stepp - thank you, all!
From the collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, circa 1635-37.
The gorgeous light through the sleeve and the oddly simplified, knuckle-less hand....
G and I visited the Portland Art Museum recently. To renew our membership but, more pressingly, to remind ourselves of the layout of the gallery where we'd soon be presenting our "pop-up" event for The Untold Gaze, as part of the amazing Portland Book Festival (formerly Wordstock.) While upstairs in the galleries that feature the Pre-Impressionist European paintings and sculpture, we noticed the special display of the visiting LACMA Mary Magdalene by Georges de La Tour, something I'd very much wanted to see, but had forgotten would be there. And I was so glad not to have missed it; it is even more beautiful than I'd imagined. Really, a quite remarkable painting. Exquisite, profound. Impossible to adequately describe, impossible to adequately reproduce; the image here is nothing to the actual painting. Reading more about it later, I realized that there are actually four known paintings on this subject by de La Tour, the one in the Louvre being only a very slight variation on the Los Angeles version.
From the collection of the Louvre, circa 1640-45. The position of the feet is the most noticeable difference between this and the LACMA painting.
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From the collection of the National Gallery of Art. circa, 1635-40.
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From the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, circa 1640.
The best thing that ever happened to me in this crazy life, the most miraculous thing, was G and I finding each other. You can't imagine just how impossible it was that we did. And today we celebrate thirteen - thirteen! - years of being married. Thank you for everything, my sweet and fierce wife!
We always make silly/sweet cards for each other to celebrate these sort of things. Here is today's, mine to her.
In case it isn't obvious, that's our kid-heads Photoshopped into a vintage photograph; I wasn't terribly ambitious this year...!
It doesn't seem possible, but my sweet wife turns fifty years old today. If you knew her, if you could see her in person, you'd be every bit as incredulous; she barely looks out of her twenties. And more than her youthful appearance, it's her vivacity and curiosity and humor. In countless ways, she's really quite a remarkable human. And I'm so grateful that I get to share my life with her; how I got so lucky I'll never understand. Gigi - Eugenia Bain Little, ma belle Eugénie - I salute you!
But one more thing about that "eternally youthful" business? If people start asking if she's my daughter, I'm going to be very cross...!
Nicholas salutes her, too.
And the image of Nicholas as used in the card? A bit of cotton wool for the doggy ears; Nicholas adores Gigi, but loathes fireworks.
G and I exchange silly cards several times a year: birthdays, anniversary, Valentine's Day, and we alternate each year in which of us produces our Christmas/Holiday card. They always consist of us Photoshopping our heads onto something appropriate - or appropriately inappropriate - and we usually try to find a place for Nicholas as well.
G's card to me. You may now refer to me as "spud"!
We, of course, scramble to share these on Facebook - we're so starved for attention! - but today I couldn't help thinking about how so many are distressed by this intrusive little holiday. A holiday that conspires to make single people feel like they've failed in some way. Being alone is not a failure! So I wrote this, there: I know this weird, pushy, heavily marketed holiday can be unpleasant for a lot of people. Those who are unhappily uncoupled, particularly. It can make perfectly lovely people feel bad about themselves. Our society hammers away at the bullshit idea that it's bad to be alone. It's NOT.
My first real relationship happened when I was nineteen and ended about two years later. Then NOTHING until I was forty-six! Hardly even a date in twenty-five years. I was mostly very good with being alone, and at some point I figured that that was going to be how it went. I stopped HOPING. But at the same time, I guess I had some unconscious thought to keep myself "ready". I did a lot of work on myself, I kept my heart open but I didn't really expect anything at all. And I fell in love - unrequitedly - twice, once at the beginning of that twenty-five years, and once at the end. My heart was crushed, especially the second time, but somehow I stayed open. And when G stumbled into my life, I was ready for the next part of my life.
I'm not sure why I'm saying all this. I guess I remember the, what? disapproval? I felt from friends and family that I wasn't with someone for all those years. But I was fine! And as MUCH as I love G and our life together, sometimes I miss the absolute freedom of being a single person. Alone is cool! And I'd hate for all the lovey-face gushing of knuckleheads like G and me to make anyone feel bad about their singleness, to have that add to the stoopid societal message that this day wantonly spews. You are beautiful as you are, where you are. And if you still think that sucks, my advice - what, you should listen to me?! - would be to give up all hope - hope is a wall - and try to keep your beautiful, tender heart open. xoxo
I don't know the setting depicted. The engraved portion of the etching measures four by seven inches.
I can't remember where I found this etching - was it my grandmother's, did I find it pressed in an old book? - but it seems like I've had it forever. Always putting it somewhere safe - flat and dry - and pulling it out again, puzzling unsuccessfully over the signature, then putting it away yet again. A few weeks ago, I tried again to make sense of the scrawled writing. I asked G what she thought it might spell. She thought the beginning of it might be the initial M, and then followed by ACH.... She also thought the name might end in an R or an S.
Seemed about right, so I hit the internet and scrambled about trying to find something to match up with that start. Nothing, so I just dove into Google Image and started looking for similar sorts of images. After not too long, really, I came across an etching by a Maurice Victor Achener that seemed fairly close in style to mine... hmm? So I Googled him specifically and found many, many examples of his work, almost all signed just as this one is. Quite remarkable, after all this time wondering if the little print was "anything", that I would find the maker, an artist whose work is in museum collections all over the world, and that I would find him that suddenly.
Maurice Victor Achener (17 September 1881, Mulhouse, Alsace - 19 April 1963, Paris), French painter, engraver, and illustrator. He studied at the École supérieure des arts décoratifs in Strasbourg, and continued his studies in Munich at the Kunstakademie. He was a student of the painter Ludwig von Löfftz and of the engraver Peter Halm, who was a major influence in his pupil's turn toward etching, the work for which Achener is now best remembered. He settled in Paris in 1905 and, having become a naturalized French citizen in 1913, he fought on the side of France during World War I. (He fought under the name of his Geneva-born wife, Émilie Patry.) After a long and busy career as an engraver and illustrator, he died at the age of eighty-one, and was buried in the cimetière de Montmartre next to his wife.
The artist at his easel; though now best known as an engraver, he apparently always identified as a painter first.
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As primarily a landscape artist, it isn't surprising that most of his etchings are country landscapes. Bords de la Loire.
Coup de Mistral.
Belle-Île - Le Palais.
Le Pêcheur, 1906.
La Charité-sur-Loire - Le Pont.
Belle-Île - Chemin.
La Charité-sur-Loire - La Cour au soleil.
Ferme aux mûrier - La Vaison.
Poitiers - L'église Saint-Porchaire.
Le manoir de Kervaudu - Le Croisic.
Le Balconà la colombe.
Le Portail.
La Charité-sur-Loire.
Strasbourg - Le Pont du Corbeau, 1936.
Moulin.
Belle-Île - Ferme.
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The other works he is best known for are images of Paris, his adopted home. Jardin des Tuileries.
The UNTOLD GAZE is a large format fine art book - 11x11 inches hardbound, 160 pages, full color - a collection of almost ninety of Stephen's paintings paired with short fiction and poetry inspired by his work. Included among the thirty-three authors are Lidia Yuknavitch, Tom Spanbauer, Monica Drake, Sam Roxas-Chua, and Whitney Otto. Click on the image above if you'd like more information on how to purchase the book.
Stephen O’Donnell is a mid-career fine artist, writer, and singer/performer. His paintings are widely collected, both in this country and abroad. Entirely self-taught, he is best known for his self-portraits, paintings which typically employ gender ambiguity and a lot of droll humor. His work most often exemplifies what is known as a portrait historié, in which a recognizable subject is portrayed in period costume or mythological guise, to dramatic or comic effect. He is also known for his small paintings of animals. His work – both literary and visual – has appeared in the literary magazines/journals Nailed, Menacing Hedge, and Gertrude. He is married to writer and graphic designer Gigi Little, with whom he sometimes performs. Their book, The Untold Gaze – a collection of Stephen’s paintings paired with short fiction by 33 authors – was published in October of 2018. They live in Portland, Oregon with their dog Nicholas.
