Skadi's Revenge
I never thought tit for tat was a decent rate of exchange.
This portrait of the divine Miss Skadi Atlialp, artist supreme and packrat extraordinaire, was crafted a couple of years ago for her fourth birthday. She is a difficult subject, having as she does that combination of radiant beauty and rubber-faced hilarity that once characterized legends like Carole Lombard. Plus she is never not in motion, impossible even to photograph. And brush her hair for a nice photo? You can forget that pipe dream right now.
She is depicted here with an armload of miscellaneous to document her bag-lady tendency to carry her belongings with her at all times. She cannot move even from one room to the next without packing for the occasion.
I dredge up this artifact today because Miss Atlialp has just returned my unkindness by producing a portrait of me:
As you can see, Skadi has worked to reassure everyone that her artwork is not a creation of artificial intelligence by drawing the correct number of fingers. I’m not exactly thrilled with the gray hair, but hey, at least she made me look happy. And after all, seeing as I’m clearly in full beatnik mode, admittedly accurate despite my pretensions, how could I not be happy?
Incidentally, though it may have been unfair of me to assign Mr. Product fandom onto poor young Skadi, that’s no reason you shouldn’t embrace such fandom yourself.
- A.H.
(And let’s not forget Ashley’s website, jam-packed with portraits and other drawings, his illustrated rant column, The Symptoms, his highly-affordable prints and books currently available, his eagerness for your portrait commission, and his contact email, thrdgll@gmail.com, where he longs to hear from you.)