Four Hands Create '50 Faces of Middlebury'

Author: Suzie Mozes

Even the most casual students donned navy coats and patterned ties or ruffly skirts and heels as they came out on Saturday evening to support the "Fifty Faces of Middlebury" exhibition, which presented the work of Morley McBride '02 and Jen Bloomer '02 in Johnson Memorial Building.

After rooming together sophomore year, the two girls decided to collaborate on their 500-level studio art project. They finally settled on the idea of drawing 50 face portraits of Middlebury students. Bloomer had recently attended a gallery showing of Alice Neel. She admired Neel's ability to convey a subject's personality through portraiture, which became the purpose of the project.

The artists posted their mission statement by the gallery entrance: "An exact likeness was not our goal (so if it doesn't look like you, we don't really care)." They undertook an in-depth study of a single medium, attempting to capture each subject's personality. As McBride explained, "We tried making something instead of someone." Rather than focusing on photographic accuracy, the artists were concerned with composition and creating "full" paintings.

Essentially, the artists attempted to transform the intangible essence of their peers, friends and acquaintances into a visual image with ink, charcoal, pastel or oil — quite an ambitious task.

Painting and sketching from January until the day before the show's opening, McBride and Bloomer each completed 25 pieces, working from both photographs and models. While some pieces only required 15 minutes, others demanded countless hours of labor. According to their mutual friend Sam Dabney '02.5, both artists were driven by self-motivation.

Although not working together, the two girls helped each other through endless critique sessions.

McBride and Bloomer linked arms as they maneuvered through an obstacle course of dwindling time, paying for all of the supplies, receiving permission for their show as non-art majors and organizing their gallery opening. Grinning, McBride declared, "Organizing a show is like having a wedding."

McBride, a joint major in environmental studies and geography, came to the College from Chevy Chase, Md. Bloomer, an international studies major with a focus in Latin America, hails from Boulder, Colo. Both girls remember their mothers painting with watercolors as children, establishing art as a constant presence in their lives. Although McBride favors charcoal and Bloomer prefers oil, both artists played with all media in this show.

Amidst the transformed walls of Johnson, white Christmas tree lights welcomed guests to the clinking of wine glasses, while strewn blue and green gauze enveloped the the room as gentle notes of Pachebel's "Canon in D" floated up from the string quartet playing on the lower level. The visitors wandered in and out of the gallery, distracted by the elegance of the well-attended event set against Johnson's cold, inhospitable gray concrete.

The artists successfully varied the compositions of their "experiments with paint." Only one or two portraits attacked the subject directly with a full frontal of the face. In these cases, the choice to portray the model contributed to the expression of their subject's personality.

Standing out in the gallery among primarily color images, the black and white "stick and ink" sketches, such as the one of Nat Kellogg '01.5, proved to be the most effective in delineating facial expression and emotion.

The artists played with warm and cool colors in many of the pieces. Specifically, they juxtaposed the portrait of Matt La Rocca '02, employing ice-cool blues with purple shading, next to Carlos Lopez-Hollis '02, created with warm colors in the pensive face above a dark olive shirt.

The artists were not afraid to go out on a limb with their creativity. While some of it worked, some of it did not, which is the beauty of experimenting. McBride successfully applied a liquid effect with smooth lines and soft lighting in her portrait of Jenny Levin '02 to emphasize the subject's sweet, peaceful sleep.

However, the oil pastel of Piper Platte '02 incorporated too many pastel colors with a dark purple background that impeded overall unity.

Using a texturing technique by attaching canvas to canvas or leaving excess pockets of paint, both Bloomer and McBride generated intrigue in their self-portraits that set them apart from the rest of the show. The disruption in the surface of the canvas forced viewers to look even harder at the colors.

When the wine and cheese ran out, the guests remained — a true testament to the quality of the show. Both artists plan on keeping art in their lives and hopefully in their professions. While McBride will be moving to the West Coast after graduation, Bloomer will be spending a year in Peru to paint.

The four hands that created these 50 faces will undeniably continue on in the future to develop and surpass their highly regarded achievements here at the College.