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Drawing 50


I woke up, thinking - what to do today? What does one do when one turns 50? My paints were in my studio, but the only thing that made any sense was to sit myself down right away, and take a good honest look at myself before I had any time to think. I found a watercolor block, and my drawing box and thus began a project of drawing myself every day for my 50th year. To live 50 as a painter, taking a good look each day, whether I have 2 minutes or an hour, and whether I want to or not. And in the way that iterations are not just repetitions but change due to the very fact of being repeated, I will live the year of 50.

Karen Kaapcke, September 2012

The Continuation: I have noticed in this, my 51st year, that I am more my body than ever. Yet I was suddenly barely recognizing it. The need to look at it and 'lean in' with it, to work with it, has become central. As a result, my body is becoming more my own. And more universally representative of the need to be present physically in a way that most women find only happens in the younger, sexy years. 51 = drawing the body.

Karen Kaapcke 3.30.13

A few years later, and I looked into the mirror - and was struck by how foreign my belly was to me. I still don't recognize myself.

Karen Kaapcke 9.20.16
Sundays tend to be days busy with family stuff, and I usually barely manage to squeeze in some time in the bathroom for any chunk of time to work.   Today however I got them all out to the skating rink.  Given a vast couple of hours in which to work, you'd think it would positively flow.  But it was rather like alligator wrestling; the image kept escaping me as soon as it would arrive and then, when it would stay, it said nothing.  I had to really engage with it, and not let go without engagement - until finally it came to stay.

3.3.13, self portrait in green shirt, craypas and graphite, 11 x 15", ©Karen Kaapcke 2013

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