Flying Girl Was Only Waiting For This Moment to Arrive, or Blackbird

Flying Girl Was Only Waiting For This Moment to Arrive, or Blackbird
1/28/09
Golden Fluid Acrylic on Paper 5x8"

Here's what I did to the painting that I was completely unsatisfied with. Yes, that is a Beatles quote.
This is the painting that she came from. The one I didn't like. I like the idea, I do not like the execution. It is nothing like what I had in my head and for all my fixing, I could not make it work.

I do like, however how you can see the profile through the Flying Girl.

She is the most birdlike of all my Flying Girls. Once I painted her outline, and saw the bird coming out, I just had to go with it. And once I had gone with it, the song started playing in my head, and I had to take it all the way and paint her black.

On an interesting note, I keep trying to make some of my Flying Girls black, as in African American, but it never works out. Is it because she represents me and, although I am ethnic, one of the things about me is my exceedingly pale skin. But I've managed to represent blondes without feeling like I was forcing it, and the other thing about my appearance is my exceedingly dark hair. So what is my problem with making a Black woman? I do not know. It's not like Black culture does not have a powerful presence in my life, because it does, and always has. Maybe less so now at this point in my life. Maybe that's why.

I wonder if it's because I am so used to images and stories of Caucasian women. White skin as "absence of color." Stories and myths are generally about white women. I've been inspired by Alice in Wonderland and Madeline and various other characters. Maybe most of the dialog I'm hearing is about white women, and white women's issues. Maybe it's the same issue as when only men got to tell the stories, men then were the default normalcy. That's not to say Black women don't tell their own stories, but in my world right now, there is a sad lack of Black voices.

This post took an interesting turn. I wasn't expecting this, at all.

Maybe I am getting ready to get out of the world in my head and back into the real world again.