I’d forgotten I’d drawn and scanned this a few months ago. I think I was mostly interested in creating the dress and then it sprouted a head and then it sprouted an olive branch and before I knew it, I had some poor big-headed girl basically apologizing for her very existence.
I feel ya, big head.
(Also: I don’t know where that dress came from, but it suits you somehow.)
She’s so cute – yet also grown-up before her time.
She reminds me a little bit of this image from one of Joseph Cornell’s boxes:
http://www.sheilaomalley.com/Cornell_Boxes.jpg
Oops, that link doesn’t work for some reason.
Here’s the image:
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2005/05/16/science/17orga.illo.html
I love the patterns on the dress–reminds me of pen-and-ink artists I tried to emulate when I was in high school. Do you like Aubrey Beardsley’s work?
(Also. . . my three-year-old self copied her hair–see my blog pic.)
sheila — Check out her name, “Tilly Losch.” What a great name! Oh, I love Joseph Cornell!
Kate P — On Beardsley, yes, I love him too. Dude was controversial, wasn’t he, but he was a genius.
Speaking of him, here’s a link to the complete illustrations that Beardsley did to Wilde’s Salome, hugely controversial at the time, but these are gorgeous.
And, yes, her hair does look like your three-year-old self. Great picture. 😉
Tracey!! So weird – I finished the Oscar Wilde biography last fall, and was fascinated by all the people he had hanging around him (Beardsley included) – all of whom pretty much dropped him like a hot potato when he got into trouble. Sure, they were afraid for their own skins – but Wilde was truly abandoned by all of them!
Beardsley and his drawings were just fascinating to me and while I’ve seen some of the illustrations (as well as some of his other work – including his alphabet, which I love) -I’ve never seen all of the Salome pictures. I even Googled them and for some reason came up short with finding them all online. This is a treasure trove – can’t wait to dig in!!
I was introduced to Wilde’s Salome years ago — I think I had to read it for a class — and I think at this same time, I become familiar with Beardsley’s illustrations a bit, but Kate P’s comment brought it all back.
As I recall, some of his Salome illustrations had to be altered or removed at the time because they were too erotic, too offensive. Something like that rings a bell to me.
I did a report on Wilde for a class (at a conservative Catholic college!), and I remember reading a bio of Beardsley (for fun). The Salome illustrations were controversial but I can’t remember if he changed them or they were just censored. Also seem to remember he had a conversion late in life and had much of his work destroyed, but don’t quote me on that.
Wilde converted to Catholicism too – as did Lord Douglas, the person who basically engineered Wilde’s fall from grace.
Kate P — You’re right on that; he died really young, but had converted to Catholicism a few years before.