The Eye of the Storm Or the Storm in Her Eyes?

It is hurricane season and as I was listening to the news of hurricane Faye landing on the East Coast , I thought of a new twist on the paintings I had done of women wearing veil.

My paintings are really about female eyes (https://vaheark.blogspot.com/2020/06/ofelia-wearing-snake-skin-mask-portrait.html ) as I try to address moods and attitudes through these windows to the soul.  This time, my goal was to actually have some of the turbulence of the hurricane in the very eyes I was about to paint.

So, started with a hare skin and painted an eye on it. Somehow the elongated shape of my “canvas” dictated a larger eye than in previous paintings. And that gave me the space to incorporate the turbulence.

As always I paint with a makeshift painting knife which actually is the blade of an old letter opener. I somehow find it fitting that the blade that opened envelopes now helps me open smiles!

The second eye unpredictably took the shape of a yellow fin tuna! So I drew one more line to show a tail, although most viewers may not notice the fish as I did..  Then I played with a couple of raven feathers en guise of eyebrows to see how the proportions and symmetry of the eyes have shaped up.

(The feathers are given to by my neighbor as she finds them dropped on her dog walking path in the morning.)

And that gave me the idea of using feathers in making her veil.

But first I wanted to build a head piece as I like it when women wear hats or more eccentric head garments!. I like using quail feathers as they are delicate and have a lot of colour contrast. This time, I used the tail and chest feathers but experimented with two hare tails for wings. Here are the four pieces

And this is how I put them together:

Ok, now I cut a leather border for the veil, arranged the feathers to cover her face, and added fine turquoise and quartz for delineation. A couple more feathers in the upper right corner to break the monotony of the hare skin, and my new mysterious lady hurricane-in-her-eyes was ready to be framed. Given the elongated shape of the canvas, decided to use an oval frame which once had a mirror in it.

Now, the final product sits on the wall and gets the sunset final days as the room faces west.

July 5, 2020

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2020