Page 9 - sarah-simblet_sketch-book-for-the-artist

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WHERE WE BEGIN

MAKING OUR MARK FIRST PORTRAIT
For sorre forgotten reason, the
It seems reasonable to assume that we have engaged hair of my first portrait was most
in pictorial mark-making for as long as we have made important. Eyelashes take up as
conscious use of our hands. In cave paintings like the much of my attention as the head
one opposite, we see our oldest surviving images, created itself. I now think this is a picture of
by societies of hunter-gatherers, who in their day-to-day proximity, reflecting my experience
hardship made time to picture themselves and the animals of looking closely at my father's
on which they depended. Cave art was not made for face. Even though it is made by
decoration but as a fundamental part of life, an expression a toddler this image would be
of existence, power, and belonging to place. recognizable to anyone.

On a particular afternoon in September 1974, at age two-and-

a-half, I was sitting with my mother. She gave me a notepad

and a red crayon and asked me to draw her "a picture of

Daddy." Until this day, I, like all toddlers, had happily

scribbled, enjoying the physical sensation of crayon on paper,

and the appearance of my strikes of colors, but I had never

yet attempted to figuratively picture my world. The image

above is what I gave back to my mother, and she kept it as

my first step beyond the delighted realms of scrawl.