Unlike selfies, portraits don’t disappear

Editor’s note: What Inspires Me is a regular feature in Enjoy! that asks visual and performing artists and writers about the passions that motivate them to create or perform. If you would like to write about your passion for this feature, email bfarrell@poughkeepsiejournal.com

When Marshall Borris asked me to do my portrait, the first thought that rushed through my mind was my son. He is 18 and he’ll be leaving home soon. He’ll go to college and hopefully he’ll make enough money to buy his own home. And in that home, there will be a wall where this painting will hang. I wish I had paintings showing my parents. I’d hang those instead of the black-and-white photograph from their wedding in 1953.

“So, OK, yes, let’s do my portrait.”

What came next was a bit more complicated and murky. I asked myself, in this day of age, who commissions a portrait? It was very common in centuries past, but today? I don’t know one single friend who had his or her portrait made. I started having second thoughts about all this. What if I were being vain? Then, on Facebook, I saw many of my friends had taken selfies, pictures of themselves using a smartphone. Another day, I noticed my son taking selfies and attaching them to messages using Snapchat. This went one for a while. For each message, he attached a different selfie, and he would change his expression depending on what he was saying. I thought, “What a world we live in! This would be the vainest of all activities. But my son isn’t vain. He is just doing what everyone else does in his generation.”

That’s when I decided to press forward with this show about portraiture at my gallery, Wired Gallery in High Falls. I called it “Portrait Gallery, The Art of Portraiture in the Age of Selfie” and invited artists who continue today in the tradition of doing portrait work.

Bruce Bundock did this series of portraits of his colleagues at Vassar College. These weren’t the executives and professors, but rather “the backbones of the college”: the electrician, the custodian, the locksmith, etc. Photographer Kelly Merchant has this series of portraits where she explores the “Girl” in her models. The results are hauntingly beautiful. A bit similar to Bruce, but maybe with a more ethnographic twist, Nestor Madalengoitia has done a series of 100 portraits of the people who live and work in the Main Street corridor in Poughkeepsie. Sydney Cash has perhaps the most artistically intriguing approach to portraiture, as his subjects emerge through crisscrossed patterns. Claire Lambe had her own populist project. She painted portraits of people who came in the Woodstock Public Library over a period of several months. Photographer John Currie has set up a studio in Stone Ridge to take pictures of his neighbors and friends. He is bringing a mobile version of his studio to Wired Gallery to do portraits a-la-Rembrandt of the people who come to the opening. And then there are other distinguished portrait artists in the show such as Chris Seubert, Norman Sasowsky, and of course, Marshall Borris.

My portrait by him won’t be in the show. It just can’t. Why not? Well, the show is not about me, it’s about these artists and these portraits. But why see it that way? It’s a great painting. It just happens to have me as a subject. Maybe I should get over it. I compromise: The portrait will hang it the Gallery’s reception room for the duration of the show. Then it will go to my son’s home, 10 or 20 years from now.

“Portrait Gallery” at Wired Gallery in High Falls opens with a reception on Saturday. Many of the models seen in the portraits will be at the opening. You will able to see their resemblance and the artist’s touch. It’s that touch that makes one want to hang the work on a wall and not let it disappear, like a self-portrait on Snapchat.

At the opening, we’ll also setup a photo studio at the gallery and do portraits of people walking in using a special lighting that mimics Rembrandt’s famous claire-obscure effect. John Currie, one of the exhibiting artists, will be behind the camera.

Sevan Melikyan founded Wired Gallery in 2002 with a mission to show exclusively artists of the mid-Hudson region. Prior to moving to the area in 2009, he was a marketing professional in the nonprofit sector and an artist. Contact him at www.thewiredgallery.com

If you go

What: “Portrait Gallery, The Art of Portraiture in the Age of Selfie”

When: 5-7, p.m., May 2, opening reception; regular gallery hours: 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Saturday-Sunday, and by appointment

Where: Wired Gallery, 11 Mohonk Road, High Falls

Admission: Free

Information: Call 682-564-5613; visit www.thewiredgallery.com; www.facebook.com/wiredgallery

At the High Falls Emporium

• Opening of High Falls Sculpture Garden, featuring works by Joan Barker, Tyler Borchert, Dan Feldman, Bradford Graves, Rob Hare, Anthony Krauss, Norm Magnusson, Shelley Parriott, Michael Poast, Bob Schuler and Anne Stanner. Reception with live music, 2:30 p.m.

• “Jan Sawka in High Falls,” an exhibit paying tribute to internationally renowned artist who lived in High Falls for 27 years before he passed away in 2012. The show tells Sawka’s eventful life in pictures (there are no works of art). “Jan Sawka in High Falls” and “Chagall in High Falls” will both share the same space. Reception, 4 p.m.

The High Falls Emporium is at 10 Old Route 213, High Falls.