REIMAGINING OLD WORKS: THE BEGINNING

I recently took a weekend to sort and organize all of the art related stuff in the house. My partner is also an artist, so between the two of us we have quite the collection of not just art-making supplies, but also old artworks we've done over the years. You might not notice it at all when you first come into our space, but there is literally art stuffs tucked away in every available nook and cranny: stacks of fabric scraps in the linen closet, giant stretched canvases leaning in the corner, gallons of paste under the kitchen table (which is also our desk). We sleep atop totes of paints and pencils under the bed and lounge over our pads of paper neatly tucked beneath the couch. When I open the coat closet, a giant, wearable, paper-mâché troll's head we made as a film prop glowers down at me while I hang up my jacket.

The coat closet paper-mâché troll's head.

I inherited a huge leather portfolio from my dad that's so full of old artwork I'm not sure that I will be able to carry it back up the basement stairs unassisted (or the second portfolio that I had to buy when I couldn't stuff anymore in the first one). I was going through this portfolio during this organization initiative, in that sort of way that you do when you're 15 and your mom asks you to clean your room: pulling everything out onto the bed and floor, then ending up sitting amongst the detritus reading your elementary school journals and trying on outfits for your forgotten American Girl doll for four hours while playing your scratched CD of 'The Princess Diaries' soundtrack you found in an old purse... Anyway, safe to say, I was enjoying taking my sweet time to examine and reflect on old artworks I had done years before, many from my undergrad, and since forgotten about.

What was most striking was seeing just how much my style has changed since then. While I do have memories of making the works, there's also something so foreign about them that it's simultaneously kind of hard to believe they came from my own hands. I suppose I could still paint that way if I tried, if I wanted to, but I don't.

So the question became, what do I do with these pieces? Do I tuck them away back into the ol' portfolio to tote around from place to place for the rest of my days? It is nice to hang on to memories. I still have my Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day baby blanket. I don't use it or keep it out, but I really don't see myself parting with it anytime soon. It's sentimental; a connection to my childhood self and a reminder I was once small and life was far less complicated. But while my old artworks are interesting to reminisce on, I don't really need them in the same way to serve as reminders of my younger artist self or my stylistic journey. I am already confronted with my artistic growth every time I make a new artwork, because I'm always employing new learnings gained from the last piece I made.

I started to wonder: if I don't feel particularly connected to these old artworks as they are, could I perhaps reinvent them into something new, something that reflects more of the artist I am now? I decided to start with this oil painting of an old farmer man. The piece began as a grayscale portrait study in a figure-painting class during my undergrad and I had gone back to add color around 2015-2016. And I remember feeling pretty proud of the outcome then. I think my only real goal at that point was to recreate the reference.

The Farmer (2016)

I think it's just fine. But it doesn't really hold any of the things that tickle me about the portraits I make now: mixing and matching (and sometimes clashing) bold colors, the jigsaws of lines and contours that create the form, and just a little bit of fun or whimsy or irony or something in the details that (I hope) makes the viewer go, "Now who are you? And what's your story?"

A decade after its inception, I said goodbye to the melancholy farmer and started to paint without too much of a plan, letting the work tell me what I needed from it now. This needs brighter colors. This man would wear a funkier hat. He needs a little friend to love...

The Farmer (2016) becomes Man with Cat (2026)

I enjoyed this little experiment and I'm pretty happy with how the piece turned out. At the very least, it feels much more "me" now. And even though I can't see the old work anymore as it was, it's still there woven into the piece, representing my artistic journey far better than the forgotten canvas zipped away in the dark of an old portfolio. I think I'll try it again on another.