A Double Grace

In the spring of 2006, while rooting around in my University periodicals section, I found a copy of Art Bulletin with a fascinating photo of a miniature eye set off by a black background. Like any good graduate student I read the article entitled “Treasuring the Gaze” by Hannah Grootenboer, then went to my thesis advisors and told them that I wanted to write about eye miniatures…and Jane Austen. Thus began my fascination with the eye miniature portrait, which has grown into my own little mission to revive this forgotten genre of portraiture. Besides the romantic birth of the miniature as a gift between a lovelorn prince and the off-limits focus of his affections, eye miniatures are beautiful and meaningful in themselves, even when they are anonymous.

As Grootenboer points out in her article, eye miniatures create a reciprocal, unavoidable and unwavering gaze back at the viewer that is unique in the history of painting and miniatures.

As an artist, my favorite subjects are literary, either authors or images drawn from their works. Even if I am simply painting a flower, I find it most satisfying if I can relate that imagery to a poem or passage from an essay. For me, the written word is always part of an image, and vice versa.

This especially true in eye portraits, as vision is such a large part of our experience as humans, and therefore figures so heavily into our language and means of expressing ourselves.

For instance, many modern songs (“Hungry Eyes,” “Lyin’ Eyes,” “I’ll be watching You,” etc.) use the imagery of vision, as well as innumerable phrases (“they exchanged eyes,” “she gave me the stink eye,” “I’ve got my eye on you,” “apple of her eye,” etc.). We are a culture shaped by vision--in the sense of creativity and the sense of sight--so the eye miniature as an artistic representation of our means of seeing is modern, even as it evokes the oddities of generations past.

Check out my shop on Etsy to see more of my work at http://www.adoublegrace.etsy.com. I love working on customized jewelry and paintings, so please check out my portfolio and custom designs page at http://www.adoublegrace.com.