JOY's ART: Self-Portraits

Photos, Self-Portraits of Artist:

http://joys-favorite-fotos.blogspot.com/2012/04/submissions-to-52-frames-2014.html

"Photographers" contaminating the Internet with selfies

can learn a thing or two from Man Ray and Frida Kahlo". - Salon.com

Photo: Writings on my wall are affirmations that helped me survive during years

I was a Caregiver Angel Warrior.

These are also my Self-Portrait.

(An artist friend, Moriyah, z'l / obm, had affirmations on her wall while she was burdened with cancer,

and learning from her, I felt I had permission to spiritually support myself this way.)

~ ~ ~

The ONLY other time I'd held out a camera for a 'selfie' was with a friend and her new mezuzah on door post,
and my NEW expensive camera landed on her marble floor.

SELF PORTRAIT

an artist of joy

My self-portraits are of me, Joy, in joy, appreciating the environment filled with form, color, companions, art, nature, inspiration, man's genius, music, more. My senses are alert, my spirit and energy activated.

Lingering for many moments many times in same experiences, notably at my favorite museum LACMA, and capturing the moment, one of many moments, portrays part of my identity; An artist and appreciator, in an art space.

For last few decades I drive into LA to LACMA flashing my membership card and enjoy the same contemporary installations over and over again. I can still feel one outdoor mural installation (no longer alive) where I stood within the scene.

I'm grateful to enjoy LACMA with my sister, an art historian.

~ ~ ~

Challenge for 52Frames Self Portrait Week 1 2016

Next 5: Essence of Joy

I recorded these scenes as I naturally discovered them.

I smile as I play behind white feathers strung at a trendy store in The Grove

that tourists wanted to visit this holiday season.

My essence is spiritual, joyous. creative, sentimental, and connected in kindness, love and truth.

My essence includes loving a good challenge, fun or serious. My essence pursues justice (Tzedek, Tzedek, Tirdof) and that includes being aware of Loshan Hara/wrongful slanderous speech.
My spiritual soul loves wearing garments of purple.
The tiny bird in composite, shot this week at the grave of my husband, z"l, on his 10th yahrzeit,
was pointed out to me by my granddaughter.
(I always loved the elegant doves in Spanish artist Alvar's paintings. His art celebrates the joy of life.)

I always enjoy finding feathers (a long full white swan feather in local Lake Balboa), but I feel pain if feathers are from victims of violence.

I attach purple feathers to my kipot/head coverings.

I think of feathers and I think of the only possession my beloved Grandma Ethel, z”l, brought with her to America from Russia on long ship rides over 100 years ago– her feather pillow that she gave to me. There is a feather pillow destroyed in Fiddler on the Roof. Grandma taught me to be careful with words. "If a feather pillow is busted, one can’t retrieve the feathers blown away, just as one can not retrieve ill spoken words. If you have nothing nice to say, say nothing at all", said Grandma Ethel. She died in Atlanta, Georgia in 1988, age 88. I hold her in my heart. Grandma Ethel said that the Klu Klux Klan threatened to “tar and feather” her because of her kindness to the black folk, including Rev. Martin Luther King, obm.

I smile as I see a mirror on a vanity table that reminds me of my hinged, 3 sided heavy mirror that had belonged to my mother, z”l, on the other coast since 1950ish.

What parts of her do I clearly see in myself? As a photographer, I discovered some.

Fun to see and connect with a piece of furniture reminding me of my multi-talented artist mother, who died at age 49, 1969.