Been meaning to do this for a while now. Just hung out and painted for an hour and a half during the rec time at a nursing home. It was harder to converse than I imagined, since they were mostly hard of hearing, and not very talkative themselves. But there are definite connections, albeit silent ones.
This is the first step--practice for the 'ultimate' portrait project. The disenfranchisement project--painting felons who have lost their right to vote. If I can make the relationships,
Id like to spend a month or two on it in August or September.
I need to be able to work faster. I thought these slow-moving older folk would be good practice, but since they dont talk they dont really maintain eye contact and they move quite a lot. So its even better practice than I thought.
Already theres something about the incompleteness of the depictions that feels meaningful. Its hard to 'see' them. I went there wanting to hear their stories, to listen to them, but they are beyond interest in that somehow. They are shells of themselves, shells of consciousness, shells of life. Either they have full minds trapped in incapable bodies, or what seems more aparantly the case, their minds are having mercy on them and keeping pace with their physical states. Most of them look like I feel during the most intense peak of a halucinegenic trip. When youre experience is entirely internal and not related to the physical world.
These are happy, peaceful deteriorating people.
Vera was a lively black lady who complemented my small figure, flowerdy ("fancy") dress and was very much impressed with my skills as a painter. She could not keep her head up for very long periods of time and mostly let it drop down, either looking down or up through her eyebrows. But when she did lift her head she would address the 'friends' at the table - concerned for their temperature or other wellbeing; they never responded. She would occassionally yell out "its Cold!" To no one in particular, just anyone on the staff or two functional legs who might be able to do something about it. But she was very grateful when they would tend to her, replacing her leg that fell or getting her a cup of coffee (2 sugars).
Pedro was a graceful man with intense dark eyes. He didnt seem to be able to speak, and appeared to be rathershy. I might have been projecting that because maybe he couldnt see me well enoughto know I was looking at him. Ormaybe he just didnt mind--generally theyd lose interest in me quickly and seem oblivious to my presence, until their gaze drifted to me and Id smile, then theyd smile big back. This was pretty much universal. But if I tried to ask a question they generally did not respond. Vera was the only one who would try and we would both repeat ourselves a couple times until we could communicate, but we couldnt always get there.
The children of the people living there were the most responsive to me. And they seemed just as happy for company.
Looking firward to going back on days off.
