The Power To Portratiture: Remembering Everyday People at the Holidays

The holidays invite individuals, family and friends and the odd person in the mall or street, together to create relationships. For whatever period of time, the relationships may generate hope, love and meaning for a routine daily existence. Portraiture in art displayed frequently through painting, photography, sculpture and video remembers these individuals and the relationships for eternity.

Katie Musolff creates primarily as a portrait artist and believes her art encompasses these lasting relationships, especially at her studio in the Pfister hotel for their Artist in Residence Program. Here she renders on canvas and paper people who have worked at the Pfister for extended years. When she sits in the hotel's café enjoying her coffee or eating an informal meal, Musolff often finds time to sketch “the regulars,” the individuals who occupy the exact same seat on their special morning or afternoon at the Pfister café.

“Breakfast at the café is an interesting experience, “ Musolff explains and smiles. “And many fascinating Milwaukee personalities appear here.” The artist has filled Notebook #4 with these faces together with their stories written in pencil beside the sketches. Annie, who manages from behind the café counter, has worked for the Pfister 24 years. Another employee Clem has graced the hotel with his presence for 18 years. Musolff retrieves the leftover blotter paper from the hotel's reception desk that is changed every day. recycling it into a great heavy grade drawing material to showcase these people who often remain unnoticed though strokes of graphite. Katie remembers each one in her portraits so others will appreciate their loyalty and service.

Milwaukee portrait artist David Lenz also captures those overlooked children and adults who contribute to making life richer in unexpected ways. His award-winning portrait Sam and the Perfect World portrays his son and is on permanent display at the Milwaukee Art Museum. This poignant image of Sam in a picturesque rural environment allowed Lenz to immortalize his child at a specific age and provided the opportunity to honor Eunice Kennedy Shriver at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. with another image titled Rare Halo Display: Portrait of Eunice Kennedy Shriver.

In his portrait honoring Shriver, Lenz also honored the landmark organization she helped develop, Special Olympics, and the participating children painted alongside Shriver Kennedy. This tribute then recognizes every child with special emotional, physical and mental challenges and reminds those who view the portrait that these children do succeed when society usually finds them inadequate. This year another of his portraits honors three Milwaukee children with the oil on linen Wishes In TheWind, and focuses attention on their hidden lives and dreams while admired from the Governor's mansion in Wisconsin.

Debra Brehmer's Portrait Society Gallery featured an exceptional exhibition this summer in “The Real Photo Postcard Survey Project.” Over 60 photographic portraits, neither airbrushed nor retouched, depicted wondrous, ordinary people in all shapes and sizes, ages and social status, that recognized true personal diversity  Taken and co-curated by Manitowoc's renowned photographers J. Lindemann and J. Shimon, these individual likenesses represent one fleeting moment that would never appear again. Brehmer's insightful catalogue documented this photographic history together with the exhibition's microcosmic picture of humanity.

The Museum of Wisconsin Art hosted “To See Ourselves As Others See Us: Contemporary Wisconsin Portraits” to introduce this genre to another generation from a modern perspective. Whether viewing self-portraiture by Fred Bell and Melissa Cooke or Marc Sijan's full size, hyper realistic three-dimensional sculptures, the artworks provoke the viewer to recall how one indiviudal contributes to life's ultimate meaning.

Even the Milwaukee Art Museum developed the theme to portraiture when it opened “Raphael: The Woman With a Veil.” The  stunning masterpiece demonstrates Raphael's technical genius using color, light and shadow that reflects an individual, perhaps Raphael's lover, and a particular historical time and era. The subject continued on a more personal level with the MAM's past exhibition “Intimate Images: Portraits of Love and Loss.” Tiny faces painted on minature ivory or diminutive surfaces exposed the essence to relationships in life. IIlustrating how an image of one person can greatly influece or move another who wears or views it by remembering and reminescing who they are.

The portrait, however developed and in all mediums, remembers significant people in life, or that one particular person significant to life. The singular image reinforces the portrayed person's value and worth, whether for only one person, or a complete city, state, or even a nation. This holiday season remember all the people in life who make a difference, the why and how. Treasure these once in a lifetime moments by creating a sketch on a napkin, computer paper, a brown paper bag with a crayon, marker, pen or pencil like the modern masters. Grab a scissor to shape a silhouette or paper cut out similar to Matisse. Snap that digital photo, or perhaps a black and white print with an actual retro camera on film. Be an artist who remembers that these particular people at a holiday gathering may never meet or appear in the same time or manner ever again. Choose to save the memory of these persons for posterity.  Musolff regards that seemingly inconsequential events transform into “These experiences [that] are richer because of the people you run into.”

Everyone “runs into either those far-removed or familiar people by choice or chance,” all equally important and who eventually make life richer through a relationship, especially during the holiday season. Take notice and be bold by creating any kind of portrait art. The moment will celebrate and cherish each person one meets, remembering them for the future.