For the past t
hree weeks or so i have been consumed with the completion of a portrait of, as the title up there suggests, the legendary accomplice of Sweeney Todd – and often misunderstood baker of human meat pies – the endearing Mrs. Lovett. It has been a long time since taking on a portrait and this one let me know it. At one point – I’ll call it the apex of the experience – I watched this commission fall apart beneath my fingers, melting away like snow in June, just as its subject had in a great and raging boiler.
Today, as I sit between surges of the last steps of finishing, I have a moment to try and get this process down in a format that can just as easily slip away if i don’t push the Save Draft button here on the bottom every now and again.
Gone and come back 3 days later, she’s really almost finished now. The past few nights have just been coats of matte glaze spray. To be picked up tomorrow or the next day most likely, Mrs. Lovett’s departure marks a closure in my life. I hadn’t realized this until working it out in writing 3 days ago, Monday, the same day I had started this post. I’d outlined in an email to the portrait’s owner the true significance of the piece, wondering if she had any idea the impact on my life of her commission. It went something like this:
It was the peak of my relapse and very public downfall that I had reached for support. If my rent went unpaid for one more week, it was to the curb with me. The landlords had put up with quite enough, along with my employers , neighbors, and police and court authorities in the city where I lived. With nowhere left to turn, I shot letters out to past benefactors of my art who’d dropped a pretty penny at one gallery or another. I was desperate, looking for a loan.
The urgency of my situation heightened when I discovered my ex wife and son were facing eviction the same exact time. It was one of those years. As irony would have it, the rent they owed was almost identical to mine, somewhere in the lower 800 range. Not long after learning this bit of alarming news, the loan came in. Only it wouldn’t be a loan. It was a commission from my most dependable client. She refused to think of it as a loan. When I got back on my feet and all this chaos was behind me, she said, she wanted a portrait. It would be of her in her most prized stage role to date – the lovely Mrs. Lovett.
Cut to a few days later when the check was to be written out. The ship was going down fast. I knew even if I saved myself that month, chances of me pulling out of the mental and physical whirlwind I was captured in were bleak. Spending the money on myself made little sense when the roof over my son’s head was in danger of being torn away
. I requested the client put her check in my ex’s name. Within 3 weeks I was homeless. A week later I was in detox.
Over the next year and a half as I rebuilt a foundation of sobriety, Mrs. Lovett remained high on the amends list. For most of that time the purchase of an appropriate canvas was beyond my means. Even if I got the thing, I had no studio space to speak of, not even a room. It was sober house to shelter to sober house before I’d have such a luxury (and I will never take a room of my own for granted EVER again). But with sobriety comes certain promises from the universe and the day came where there was some extra cash to play with – and not just my own bedroom, but ANOTHER room I was able to commandeer as a studio. So, unfolding my portable easel for the first time since rehab (where I painted other addicts’ girlfriends for cigarettes) I set out to make good on the pie queen deal.
The work proceeded without a hitch. It was such a deep inner joy to be painting again. Moving from a rushed, just get it done vibe to one much more meditative, the portrait brought me back into the familiar old zone. Hours blurred away as I regained my studio legs. I hadn’t really spent any time like that with a piece since before the eviction. That’s when the symbolism of the whole situation really struck me. This portrait was directly related to my current and past living conditions. I’m still trying to wrap my head around the complete irony. Other subtleties existed. I was ultimately scheduled to complete the painting during the Easter season – and it was during this time (though in 2001), that my wife and I had originally separated. The same woman this portrait’s check had been written to in order to save her and my son’s home. A circle was about to be completed. A great sense of closure was settling in. Then Mrs. Lovett’s skin melted.
Still adjusting to a makeshift studio, a lot of the materials – paint shades especially – were made up as I went along. With what I had, finding a reliable and adequate amount of flesh tone was somewhat of a challenge. Imagine my thrill then to find a full bottle of beige paint within the supply of acrylics at my arts and crafts cabinet at school. With some mild adjustment I created the shade I needed and plowed right along.
In the picture above you will notice the coloring details around Lovett’s eyes. The dark rings and eye shadow were applied after the skin foundation had set. For subtlety I would do these details in very watery layers, building up to the desired shade. Right around the lower lid of the second eye is where I noticed the water started to eat away at the foundation. Then I noticed the same thing was happening beneath the layer of eye shadow I had just applied. Ditto for the eye I had already completed! The skin was bubbling up, bits and strips of it rising, swimming in the mostly water layer. Swabbing at these parts with a paper towel, the foundation clung and came up now in chunks. It was a domino effect. Not fully solidified and never really adhering to the canvas, Lovett’s upper face simply wiped away beneath the towel. Knowing now that the foundation was completely washable (and most likely some sort of kid’s finger or poster paint), I had no choice but to strip all the portrait’s skin. And the piece was being picked up within 48 hours.
I couldn’t believe it. I had never experienced such a painting catastrophe. The thing was ruined. I knew the client wouldn’t be too upset with a delay – after all, she had already waited more than a year and a half – but I was devastated. All I wanted at that point was whatever closure the universe seemed to be hinting at. I wanted to finish this divine cycle of home to homelessness and back to home. Most of all, I realized, I wanted to get out of the Easter season. Prompted by the significance of finishing the piece and fulfilling its related debt, thoughts of my ex had been cropping up steadily. This of course led to memories of the marriage, its Easter night finale, and the challenging years that followed. I wanted it all to stop, just go away. This portrait seemed a means to that end.
And this is how I truly bonded with the portrait of Mrs. Lovett. This is how I relearned what it was to be not just a painter – but an artist. How the job became a passion. I had regained my studio legs, sure, but in retrospect I realized I was more going through the
motions than investing any real heart into the work. I was guarded. All of the emotions and memories bursting out now were the ones I had been avoiding since taking on this commission at the very start. Looking at Mrs. Lovett, I had to look at myself – and I had to recreate us from the skin on up.
The week that followed was pretty beautiful as I repaired and completed the portrait. Keeping our coffee date in light of the absent painting, my client and I got together for the first time since God knows when. It was here that I was able to study live my subject, inside and out. Not only did we reconnect, but we deepened our relationship, sharing the ups and downs of our lives since the time of the commission. This is the kind of weight that portrait now has. A history and bond that only its artist and patron can know.
What’s more, I was granted the time to really process the mental stuff. Where my life is compared to where it was. The leaps and bounds I have taken since the awful episode that this commission had marked. It didn’t mark that time back there anymore. It meant something else now. It did not symbolize eviction – but SURVIVAL. Evolution. Recreation. All of this introspection and realization during Easter too. That was the real kicker. God’s sense of humor never ceases to amaze.
In the end, the piece wound up reflecting a bit of its process, Lovett’s makeup ultimately running down her face as a tribute to her dissolving beneath my fingertips. This is also a hint towards the character’s demise in the legend of Sweeney Todd, melting like a morsel in one of her unwitting customer’s mouths, perfectly cooked off the bone.
Nice job, universe. Very clever. I get it.
Brian M. Riley 