Out of the Mouths of Babes (Virtual Exhibition # 4)

This time it is not so much about the painting as it is about the story behind it.

After a visit to a Southwestern art gallery in Tucson, Arizona featuring some fierce looking female nudes, I wanted to paint a similar woman with personality. I visualized a woman who was mature, confident and completely comfortable in her "bare" skin. The result was the accompanying painting roughly made to look like an Indian Gypsy woman. I prepared the canvas to lend an uneven texture which provided a wrinkled look. The aim was to create a figure that would not be too pretty and certainly not simpering. The image posted here is "Photo Shopped" to make it family friendly. The original is anatomically correct.

My son was in his early teens when I painted this portrait. Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber was in the  news, having resurfaced after the Oklahoma City bombing. My son was a very busy and outgoing person in his youth and our home was the meeting place of a large number of his friends who came and went at all hours of the day. The boys would pass my studio niche on their way to the basement game room and often comment on the work in progress on the easel. This particular piece was observed in complete silence by them, all through its creation. A couple of years later I had a small exhibition in a local artists' co-op gallery. The gallery required me to provide a title for each work on display. I had a hard time naming my paintings, particularly this enigmatic female who doesn't tell an obvious story. During the days before the exhibition I was in the habit of constantly pestering my family to come up with names for the paintings and this one was a stumbling block for everyone. One day my son blurted out in exasperation, "Why don't you just call it the Unaboober? All my friends call it that."

It took several minutes of astonished and hysterical laughter before I fully digested what he had said. Although I did not submit that name to the gallery, the lady on the left has been the Unaboober in my mind ever since and the computer image file of the painting bears the same apt name.   

Comments

[Sujatha]

So what did you call it for the exhibition?

[Ruchira Paul]

You know, I can't remember. The names were given in a hurry for public consumption and those are not what I use in my own catalog. I have the 1997 exhibition paperwork somewhere. Probably something bland like "Gypsy Woman," it was.