Portraits

I read this interesting article on the blog Jane Austen's World [janitesonjames] about the making of silhouettes, which was hugely popular and inexpensive way to capture likenesses before photography was invented. Those of you who saw the movie "Sense and Sensibility" may remember the scene where Marianne creates a silhouette of Willoughby, using a candle and graphing paper.

It made me think about the human impulse to capture the likeness of loved ones. I do this by having pictures taken of our family, and as you know, they have given me a great deal of pleasure. I've mentioned previously my family's connection with the artist Richard Serrin, and the picture he painted of our family, placing us all in a piazza in Italy.

Besides these instances, I sat for a portrait with an artist when I was nine years old. Mom and Dad commissioned one of each of their children when we were on vacation in Rockport, Massachusettes, and the four portraits hung on the wall in our family room for years (Mom and Dad, do you still have those portraits? They're not hanging on your wall in your new home presently, I believe?) I remember very well sitting for that portrait, and being so fascinated by how the artist captured my face (I thought) so exactly. When it was done, my parents decided that they didn't quite like the color of the checking on my dress (it was lavender) and so the artist re-touched it, changing the lavender striping to blue. I remember thinking how strange that was, to have such an exact replica of my face and yet to change the detail of what I was wearing. Sort of a non-photographic version of Photoshop.

When I was in my teens, my dad took a sketching class, and he invited me to come to one class to act as the model (fully clothed, honest!) One of the artists gave me her sketch of my face when the class was over, and I've kept it in my genealogy box, as a picture of myself at that age.

Then, of course, there are the caricatures I've occasionally had made at amusement parks, parties, etc.

Have you ever sat for a portrait, in oils or pen drawing or otherwise? What was the occasion? Were you happy with the result? Can you post a picture of it? What do you think is gained by having a portrait in an artistic medium other than photography?

Thinking more about Rowling, fiction, Dumbledore

Most of my thinking about what's going on in the blog commentary about Rowling's remarks on Dumbledore is filtered through my experience in writing The Wild Swans, and particularly the difficulties and uncertainties I experienced in writing about a minority community when I'm not of that minority myself.

As I've told several people, I nearly stopped writing the book several times because I was so troubled about whether I could handle the material properly. (And let's face it, a book about sexuality, marriage, death and religion is just fated to include difficult, fraught and explosive material.) No writer should ever hold out for universal popularity, that's clear, and some people have been kind enough to say that I handled it well. But I was immensely troubled by the same issue that I believe a lot of people have latched onto when thinking about how Rowling handled Dumbledore. And yes, I did get some flack about it.

Specifically, I wrote a book where the gay character's story ended in death and tragedy, and the heterosexual character's story ended in rescue, love and redemption. Given the facts of the AIDS epidemic and the structure of the fairy tale I was basing the book upon, there wasn't much way around that, but it really REALLY bothered me, to the point that it almost made me abandon the book entirely. Because I absolutely didn't want that to be the message that people took away from The Wild Swans, that somehow gay relationships were doomed to tragedy, whereas heterosexual ones were not. I don't believe that it true about these relationships in real life.

sistermagpie has posted about this aspect specifically in complaining about Rowling's remarks about Dumbledore, although she has since locked the entry so that I can't see it.

How did I reconcile this in my mind? Well, I didn't ever manage solve it entirely to my satisfaction, really. I tried to show that Elias and Sean's relationship was the most loving one in the book, even more so than Eliza and Jonathan's, really: although Sean did indeed infect Elias, he didn't turn on him and betray him emotionally the way Jonathan turned on Eliza. And I wanted the ending, at the Quilt, to convey at least some hope, to get across the idea that there still might be a chance to save Elias, if we worked hard enough to break the curse (raising money to fight AIDS, medical treatments, etc.)

( Spoilers for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows here )

Heard back from my doctor's office

They're putting in a prescription for an antibiotic for me that I will pick up today. Cross your fingers that it'll help.

*Goes to make my 1,453,232nd cup of tea*

Wizardrockmentary/Wizardschlockumentary

There is a project underway called the Wizard Rockumentary, an independent feature length documentary exploring Harry Potter fandom, the Wizard Rock community, and the goals of these musicians to promote literacy. The filmmakers, a pair of identical twins named Mallory and Megan Schuyler have written on their website:

So, in celebration of the HP music scene, we decided to create The Wizard Rockumentary: a feature length documentary on Wizard Rockers and the HP following (think "Trekkies" but way cooler because it's Harry Potter!). We hope that this documentary will expose the wizarding community to the joy that is Wizard Rock!

We discovered "Wizard Rock" back in the summer of 2004 when we saw Harry and the Potters perform in Olympia. Their cds became favorites on our stereo, traveling with us to college and played for fellow HP fans who had not yet been enlightened by Wizard Rock. Earlier this year, we were coaxed into joining MySpace and we discovered that dozens of additional bands had formed all across the country, and a few internationally, to write songs based on the Harry Potter world.

Primarily through MySpace.com, these WR bands have created a positive online community for themselves where they can share their music and even sell merchandise. A supportive fanbase has developed, and the WR bands have found themselves with an audience of thousands. Now, in addition to Harry and the Potters, many of the bands are also performing live and some are even touring the nation. Dedicated fans of all ages show up at libraries, coffee shops, and night clubs to meet them and hear them play-- many dressed in HP gear or wearing WR t-shirts. In fact, these musicians of varying skill have become celebrities to a select population of HP fans.

We have received a lot of support for this movie already from this same group, and we are very enthusiastic about this project's potential. While the internet has provided a stage for these musicians, the news of their existence has not reached the majority of HP fans. We hope that this documentary will help to spread the word, and both wizards and muggles should be able to enjoy the spirit and creativity of these young musicians and their stories.

As part of their promotion, they have created a preview video, here:

And now a parody video of that preview video has also been created (using some of the very same bands), promoting the Wizardschlockumentary, in which the musicians such as The FruitoftheLupins and Polymerboyd and the Dismemberalls cheerfully explain they got into wizard schlock to score chicks and free beer. Some of it is rather rude, yes (hey, it's a parody). But still pretty funny.