What would Philadelphia mean to someone who just moved in a few days ago? Well, as for myself, the only thing I had seen so far was the LOVE sign. How ironic when I actually had no loved one’s around. From this beloved one who had stayed on the other side of the country the report felt without a call: what a plain idea but to draw the LOVE sign. The non-native English speaker that I am felt lost facing this unfamiliar word. Apparently though, plain was the definition of things I might have liked, as that is how I use to choose my bagels. Never would I have thought to get the blueberries ones when really each bite will have such a nicer and tastier flavor. Well Philadelphia was definitely flavorless, just cold and unfriendly and I wish I could have just thrown some blueberries on it to make it feel better. So while waiting for some sunshine to warm myself up, I might as well etch some blueberries on this plain LOVE sign.

           

         The conception of this print started by applying ground on a zinc plate and letting it dry before drawing on it then put it in the acid for a first fifteen minutes to etch those LOVE sign lines. The excitement of my first print soon let place to a feeling of distraught when I realized I had forgot that printing would be in reverse. Too late to go back, I needed to make sense to my project again. Well, after giving it some thoughts, Philadelphia didn’t make sense to me. I was on the opposite side of the United-States that I wanted to be in. And this was such a strange feeling as every over cities I had visited before delighted me. This is how I made the decision to add the name of every city I had been too in a specific typography that was representing each of them and draw them in reverse on my plate so that they will turn on the right way after printing. All those cities made sense to me at some point, and Philadelphia keeps looking back at them. Maybe someday it will turn around, who knows? 

Breaking the usual form to make a free theme collograph project sounded like a world of possibilities. This is how I felt the day I flee to the so-called “rainy city” of Seattle: endless opportunities and chances to take, if only you make the move and get out of the box. It appears to me that it was just fair to give back to this beautiful what she deserves and make her my theme for this third intaglio project. As the most improbable but fortuitous opportunities of my year, I meet my friends at the UPS Store. And when I needed to send my packages to Philadelphia, there they were. And what a great surprise when I realized after opening it that I had to look for the tinniest brushes and erasers in a huge box full of peanuts! It came without a thought that if I had to use any materials to make my colograph about Seattle, it had to be packaging supplies.

Self-portrait: a portrait of oneself done by oneself.

Does it have to be realistic? Physically true to life? Can an honest self-portrait be not figuratively representative but depict a feeling or state of mind?

 

            Getting closer to go back home, in France and in Seattle, a weird feeling took over me. When you leave the people you love, can you expect them to wait for you? Will it be the same when you see them again? Will they have change? What if everything and everyone will be intact and the only thing that will be different will be you. Excited and anxious melt into me because when I left, I wondered “Will they remember me?”. If I never see you again, will you dream about the moments we spent together?”

This one sentence in the song “Wildest Dreams” (T.Swift, 1989) that is written on the drawing describes this feeling perfectly to me and I choose to illustrate it as my self-portrait. I give the young woman in the drawing a resemblance to me but I kept the stylization as simple as I could to focus mainly on the meaning of the artwork. It is giving it a greater truth than any physically portrait I would ever do of myself.

            The young woman in the illustration is standing between Paris and Seattle in an agitated sea water and turning her head back to gaze at the viewer which whom she addresses the words to. The lines of the city on the background show her heartbeats. Unsure and unsecure, she is taking a look back before making a choice at her future.