99 Faces

This is what I learned can happen on my 99 Faces art making adventure. You can:

  1. Deepen your self-reliance

  2. Choose where you will go

  3. Invite people along

  4. Welcome surprise

Many of us don’t believe in ourselves. Or the world we live in. It’s more familiar to spot what won’t work, to believe I can’t rather than I can. We can learn how to create possibility when we feel like there isn’t any and grow trust in ourselves to choose well, when too often we’ve not been choosing better.

99 Faces is a project that continues to surprise me and heals me. I decided, determinedly enough, that I would create ninety nine faces. I figured this would help me focus, create a body of work, and allow me to learn and grow as an artist. I could choose better. All of which turned out to be true. But something else happened, something unexpected.

I had drawn over thirty faces from references scoured from the internet. Beautiful faces I have never met. Then a friend ask me to do a portrait of her, and I did. It was startling how different I felt, more vulnerable and nervous, surely. Curiously. But it opened me up and connected me in ways where it is easier to express gratitude than find words to describe what began to shift inside me. It allowed me to invite others to share their face with me.

Art has the power to heal us and connect us. Sometimes the way it happens is beautiful and unexpected.