I think all my figure drawings are self-portraits. I draw a lot of doubles. Do I think I have a twin? No, but I do think we are many people inside ourselves and outside the world, too. I don’t draw with intention, not really. I don’t know who these people are but when I look again, I believe I am among them. Like here, I see two figures who are two sides of a person. The one, vibrant and bright and stepping out. She’s not afraid to shout. Her limbs are electric and always already dancing. But then, I encased the deflating person. The wilting kid who’s a jumble, crumpling inside a bubble of fog or discontent.
And I think they’re both beautiful. I think they need each other. I think they belong in a family of support. I think we are unformed and forming and formidable. I hear music reverberating inside both of them and side by side. It reminds me that I haven’t danced, not fully, in a long time. Parts of me get to dance just by looking at them.
I often struggle to write about my body. Truthfully, I struggle to even feel my body. But when I traverse these lines, these folds of body that come from my physical gestures, I learn I am developing my own vocabulary. I learn that my body, like my self, is not one but many. I am dislodging that dogged refrain that tells me I am only one and she is a disappointment, she is unacceptable. I am creating so many alternatives to one that there is no acceptability.