Self-Portrait
— Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun (1790); oil on canvas; 100 x 79 cm
After all those years painting patron Marie Antoinette
and her royal court, all those diamond pebbles
and blue veins throbbing under sweating temples
before the Queen’s beheading—here the artist’s mindset
turns to I, a mirrored gaze, some gauzed muslin
wrapped around her head of curls, not to obscure
her plan—but to find herself—inside the contours
of the body, subject and object becoming one.
How do we ever know when the work is done?
Palette and brushes clutched in her left hand, she makes
what seems a final mark with her right, to finish
herself—absorbed like water taken by a sponge.
Link : https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lebrun,_Self-portrait.jpg
Amelia Peláez 1896-1968
(b. Yaguajay, Cuba)
Fishes
When she passed the pescado & circled back
for the four of them
what was floating through her mind—
why did she decide to paint them like stained glass—
fire red, yarrow yellow, hornet green—
splayed overlapping on the serving plate
startled eyes filling holes & all that black
crowded with criollo, wrought iron
the table clothed, the balustrade baroque—
where did she learn to cut patterns for a cubist cloth
ornamental as an ornament of love, instrumental
as an instrument of need, so lavishly adorned—
Somewhere in Havana there is a house
inside every house lives a woman
inside the woman
a bird
in its beak
a voice
Link: https://www.moma.org/collection/works/78714
About Sharon Tracey
Sharon Tracey is a writer, editor, and author of the poetry collection, What I Remember Most Is Everything (ALL CAPS PUBLISHING, 2017). Her poems have appeared in Common Ground Review, Canary, Silkworm, Ekphrasis, and elsewhere. She holds a Master's degree from the University of California Berkeley and lives in western Massachusetts. www.sharontracey.com