Generic Girl

I drew this girl at a workshop called "Portraits in Charcoal" or something like that, and seven or eight other workshop participants drew the same girl; we were told to start with a circle for the upper portion of the head, divide it in two, divide the bottom section into three, measure to where the chin should end, connect the lines, divide the head-chin section again into three and add a mouth, and so on.

"The space between the eyes IS AN EYE," the instructor said, and my mind was blown. The outer corners of eye connect to outer corners of mouth connect to chin. The nose is also - oh my God! - the width of an eye. The bottom of the ears approximately align with the bottom of the nose - mine are too high up, I think. We are copying her reference portrait, a portrait of no one in particular, or maybe her own self-portrait, originally? She does look a bit like Generic Girl, only perhaps a few years older.

We did not display our finished drawings, or critique each other's as we do in university art classes, but covert glances as I stood to return my materials told me that while our drawings were similar, each contained the spark, at least, of a signature mark. Some were more solid, bold; others more ethereal, swirly; as I scribbled away the instructor had advised me at least twice to "go darker," had said, "Oh wow, fantastic, I love that!" to others, and I had burrowed my head in my work trying not to consider the amplitude of her praise towards each participant, trying not to work to attract praise but to engage, focus, live in the process.

This, for me, has been a lifelong struggle. "You thrive on praise," my mother informed me once, and I glowed with her observation. Now I fight to thrive whether or not I am praised or even observed, and to put compliments in their proper place, a dusty corner, when they do arrive.

We are all generic human beings on some level. We have so much in common: eyes, ears, noses, mouths. On another level, we are particular, no one's signature identical to anyone else's, and each of equal value. Honestly. Aesthetics aside.