Tag Archives: biography

True Artistry: Emily Grace Goodrich

by

Darling discovered the art of Emily Grace Goodrich, and couldn’t help but share her stories told through lovely lines, shapes, and colors. Enjoy Emily’s commentary and artwork below, and don’t forget to be inspired to pick up your own pencil or paintbrush…

“Fun!” (a drawing of my art studio). 


 Tree. 2011. Mixed media on wood veneer paper. 

 

I’ve always been drawn to trees and imagery of them, and often use them as substitutes for people in paintings that are meant to be semi-autobiographical or to tell the stories of friends or family members.

 

Tree Study #1. 2010. Mixed media and copper leaf on cardboard. 


Radish seeds. 2011. Mixed media on wood veneer paper. 

 

The three paintings below from 2004-2005 take their names from lines of a short story by Truman Capote called “A Lamp in a Window,” from Music for Chameleons. In the story, the writer, lost in the woods, is taken in by a kindly older woman who, because she “…couldn’t bear to lose them. Completely,” has preserved her deceased pet cats in a deep freeze.

I’m definitely one to lose myself in nostalgia and cling to things past their time, and I sometimes question the purpose of that characteristic. The thought process for these pieces began when I super-glued together, for the third time, a teacup I’d kept for sentimental reasons, and subsequently broken. Instead of tossing it out, I kept gluing and re-gluing it, knowing full well I’d never be able to use it for tea again. The teacup became a symbol for me of the futility of hanging onto things I know I ought to let go of. In “Sit down, sit down. It’s not often I have company,” for example, the broken and re-glued teacup was set onto fabric stretched over a wood panel, then filled with tea. The tea leaked out and stained the fabric, and then “wounded” trees were drawn into the dried tea and the teacups were replaced with flat drawings. Most of the imagery shows trees with their roots clinging to broken or discarded things that have been buried in the past, underground.

 

“‘It’s just that I couldn’t bear to lose them. Completely,’ she laughed…” 2005. Mixed media on wood panel. 

 

 “Sit down, sit down. It’s not often I have company.” 2004. Mixed media and fabric on wood panel.


“‘Then maybe you will understand this,’ she said.” 2004. Mixed media on door.

 

After that series, my senior thesis for college, I had difficulty working on creative projects and took a rather long break from art-making. These days, though, I’m really excited about the new pieces I’m finishing up as I start working again, and the tree and radish seedling studies were a bridge for me to cross back into the process of creating. They have less thought behind them in terms of story, but were a chance for me to experiment with new techniques and materials such as copper leaf, cardboard, and coffee.

Biography of Emily Grace Goodrich:

Emily Grace Goodrich is an artist and writer from San Diego, CA. She has drawn, painted, and designed approximately since birth in 1983. She spent her childhood in Michigan and then Southern California, peeling the wrappers off of crayons (because they’re prettier that way), learning to draw and bake from her Mom, and exploring things like woodworking and electrical wiring with her Dad. She graduated from Biola University in 2005 with a BFA in Interdisciplinary Studio Arts.

After college, an interest in humanitarian issues and questions about the value of fine art in a global context led her to walk away from paint and canvas for a few years, but she’s been encouraged lately to return to her roots after seeing the crucial role of creativity in bringing social change and economic opportunity to those in need.

Her mixed-media paintings and illustrations focus mostly on imagery of trees, which she sees as symbolic representations of the people and stories in her life.

She currently works at the Make Good, a store that supports independent artists in the neighboring cities of San Diego and Tijuana; runs an eco-friendly jewelry line called Mouse and Moe, and designs products for Ember Arts, a fair trade company working with women in Uganda.

 

Marilyn: Behind the Face

by

“Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.” -Marilyn Monroe

When listing iconic women in history, one of the first names that comes to mind without hesitation is the infamous Marilyn Monroe.

Norma Jeane Mortenson was born June 1, 1926 as the third child to Gladys Pearl Baker. Though there is confirmation that Gladys was her biological mother, since the very beginning much controversy has been stirred in reference as to who her biological father actually was. Monroe’s birth certificate gives heed to the possibility that her mother’s first husband, Martin Edward Mortenson was her father though they had separated prior to her pregnancy. Much confusion still surrounds this particular aspect of Monroe’s life because on the original birth certificate Martin’s last name is misspelled, raising more questions for Ms. Baker. It’s been said that throughout her entire life Monroe denied that Martin was her father; claiming she specifically remembered being showed pictures of Charles Stanley Gifford, and being told by Gladys that he was her father.

Over the course of time, because of the severe deprivation of her mother’s mental health, Monroe was passed back and forth between twelve different sets of foster parents over merely sixteen years. It’s been recorded that at one point in time Gladys demanded that Marilyn be given back to her while visiting her and her foster parents Albert and Ida Bolender. After refusing to let Monroe return to her mentally unstable mother, Gladys quickly kicked Ida out unto the lawn and locked herself in her house. Moments later, Gladys returned with Monroe stuffed in a military bag of Albert’s. Gladys went on to partake in multiple mental catastrophes and was eventually forced into mental institutionalization.

As Monroe grew older, she was taken into custody by the state and was given to Gladys’ best friend, Gracie McKee. McKee was noted as the first person that told Monroe that she would be a movie star. McKee married Doc Goddard soon after taking in Monroe. Sources say that Doc attempted multiple times to sexually abuse Monroe, causing her once again to be taken away. Monroe reports that after living with the Goddard’s and being sent to live with McKee’s aunt, Ana Lower, she found stability for the first time in her life. Unfortunately, “Aunt Ana,” (as Monroe called her) had serious health issues. After twelve homes filled with instability, abuse, and unrest, Monroe had had enough. She approached McKee and suggested that she get married two years shy of legalization to avoid being thrown back into the foster care system. Grace and Doc agreed,  and at age sixteen Monroe married James Dougherty known to most simply as “Jim.” Jim enlisted as a Merchant Marine during World War II, once again leaving Monroe to her lone self.

While Jim continued serving as a Merchant Marine, Monroe grabbed a job for herself and dropped her husband. She began working in an airplane factory to support herself, and it was here that she was noticed by a man named David Conover who referred her to the The Blue Book Modeling Agency. After being told they were looking for girls with lighter hair, Monroe bleached her hair blonde.

With little experience, Monroe became one of their most successful models, making the cover of over twelve issues. After much dissatisfaction with her stage name, she officially took on the name “Marilyn Monroe.” Soon after, she took on her first movie role in the film “The Shocking Miss Pilgrim,” in 1947. Soon after her contract had depleted she went looking for work and just so happened to get paid $50 to pose nude in 1948. Nevertheless, Monroe redeemed herself that year by being crowned, “Miss California Artichoke Queen,” taking on a far less racy title.

Though known as the “Artichoke Queen,” Monroe was getting ready to step into her prime. The next three years leading into the next decade would be noted as the best years of her career. In part two of this article series on Marilyn, we’ll learn many lessons from Ms. Monroe. Even after the tragedy and dysfunction of her childhood, Monroe was committed to pursuing the dream within her. Though obvious in the midst of her career that her past still affected her, it’s fairly easy to see that Monroe’s outer beauty wasn’t able to compensate for the inner turmoil taking place.

If nothing else, the early life and career of Monroe has shed light unto this simple fact: Life takes place behind the face. Most of the commotion in our lives goes on in our minds, which bares life and/or death in our hearts. No matter how beautiful one seems on the outside and how “together,” they pretend to be they have their struggles as well. As Monroe would say: “We all hurt and we all have feelings too. We are all still human. All we want is to be loved, for ourselves and for our talents.”

So today, I challenge you to this: look beyond the make-up and acknowledge the tenderness and beauty of that person’s heart, dreams, and adversity. But more than that, today make an effort to speak life into that thirsty soul.

 

Photo Credit: collider.com, withlovemarilynmonroe.tumblr.com

The White Mouse: A Short Biography

by

She was an expert at using her prowess to escape perilous threats of being captured. A cunning pillar of beauty, she eluded her pursuers by way of flirtation and pure instinct, often finding her way around Gestapo traps set up for her entrapment. Many mistook her for a lofty French dame, perfect for hiding her true identity as a trained spy and soldier. She could even match her male comrades drink for drink if the occasion presented itself. The medals across her jacket proved her bravery and spoke of the ones conquered. Her shoulder-length brown hair and wide smile attracted men like the woman in the American Girl In Italy poster.

Nancy Wake Fiocca was born in Wellington, New Zealand in 1912, and moved to Australia when she was a toddler. The youngest of six siblings, Nancy left her family at the age of sixteen and traveled back to New Zealand where she became a nurse. Upon receiving an inheritance from an aunt, Nancy used the money as a key to the door of adventure; in1931, she left home to travel the world.

Adventure! The mere taste of it left her yearning for more. Her heart was set on New York, London, and Paris. But it was in Paris that her heart was stolen by French industrialist, Henri Fiocca. They were married, and settled into a cosmopolitan life in France as partners in crime. Even after marriage, the call to live for much more rang in Nancy’s ears. Eventually this young woman’s desire lead her places few would dare to follow: covert operations, espionage training, and parachuting behind enemy lines.

Nancy found work as a corresponding journalist for the Chicago Tribune while she was living in France. As a journalist, she had the rare opportunity of interviewing Adolf Hitler himself, and Wake saw firsthand the atrocities he was committing against the Jews. It was then that her taste for adventure was finally met with passion, and she joined the battle to stop Hitler and his constituents.

During the Nazi occupation in France, Nancy and Henri became active in the Maquis Resistance. Their assistance during the German occupation was imperative in helping Allied Airmen, American soldiers, and concentration camp prisoners escape during the occupancy of the Gestapo. Nancy let nothing stop her. Her sanguine attitude and resourcefulness provided encouragement to those fighting by her side in the Resistance. However, facing the daily threat of capture, France became too dangerous for Nancy, and eventually she escaped to London in 1943. Henri continued to fight in the resistance, hoping to be reunited with Nancy after the war, and she entered an espionage-training program with British Intelligence.

Once trained, Nancy carried food, weapons, and codes to the resistance soldiers in enemy territory. She parachuted into combat zones, sometimes wearing high heels to avert the attention of soldiers. One time, she was captured and braved beatings for hours, but never released any information to the enemy soldiers. On another occasion, she had to travel over 300 miles while avoiding gunfire from German airplanes as she carried vital codes to Allied soldiers. It seemed that the more ominous the situation, the brighter her bravery shined.

She faced capture again several times, but her beauty was her best ally, acting as a disguise. Gestapo officers continually let her slip through their grasp due to her coy flirtations and ability to match the demure of a countryside French woman. She once escaped capture by setting up a date with a German soldier and slipping through the hands of the authorities with his help. Needless to say, that was a date she didn’t keep. Perhaps her effectiveness in this area also could have been due to the supplies of Elizabeth Arden face cream and silk stockings, which she had parachuted down to her. On occasions when she was confronted by the enemy, they simply dismissed her, looking for a male soldier carrying a gun. Thus, the Gestapo gave her the infamous title “la Souris Blanche,” or “The White Mouse,” and  set the reward for her capture at 5 million Francs.

Nancy understood what it took to be a heroine in a war when the outcome  looked grim, but she faced her fears, often times when her life was on the line. One of her comrades was quoted as saying, “[she is] the most feminine woman I know, until the fighting starts. Then she is like five men.” Nancy earned medals from four different countries, including the highest Medal of Honor in France and medals from the United States, Britain, and Australia. It was not until the war was won and France had finally been liberated that Nancy learned Henri had been executed in 1943. Before his death, he had been tortured, but had refused to reveal any information about Nancy–she had remained his secret weapon. Even by then, Nancy’s moxie and determination to bring down the enemy preceded her wherever she went, and she knew that Henri had not died in vain. They had won the war.

Years later, Nancy remarried a retired RAF fighter pilot named John Forward. They lived in London and Australia together, until he passed away in 1997. Nancy Wake died at the age of 98 in London, England. She asked that her ashes be spread at the Montlucon in France, the place where she fought the Nazis and destroyed Gestapo headquarters alongside a band of 7,000 resistance fighters. She proved to the world that being a hero doesn’t just take smarts or strength: it takes a desire for adventure and a passion for something worth fighting for.

Audrey Hepburn and My Mom

by

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I remember the day Audrey Hepburn died. I was eight years old, and I had never seen my grandmother so distraught. She bunched a tissue against her eyes and her voice broke, as though the face of Audrey was not an image on celluloid, but the face of her dear friend. My grandmother’s attachment to an icon was the trait of a vanishing age: a lost reverence for celebrities. Of course, if the traffic to celebrity gossip sites is any indication, we are still obsessed with the mystique of glamour. But we know our idols better than ever –perhaps too well. Their missteps are relayed around the world at the speed of a broadband connection. The stars have fallen. But if leading ladies who capture our imaginations and inspire our spirits are an endangered species, the enduring legacy of Audrey Hepburn is all the more important.

At mid-century Hollywood bombshells ruled the silver screen. The sultry likes of Rita Hayworth and Lana Turner, hair often as not dyed platinum blonde, played sassy, sexy all-American heroines. Then came Hepburn, gliding onto the scene with the starring role in the Broadway production of Gigi. The young actress was dark-haired, doe-eyed, demure and almost boyishly slim, as refreshing as the first cool day of autumn. Critics and theater-goers sat up and took notice, but it was Audrey’s Oscar-winning role as Princess Ann in Roman Holiday, alongside Gregory Peck, that emblazoned her lovely exoticism on the American screen and secured the affections of a nation. Paramount filmed Roman Holiday on location in Rome, Italy. One scene called for Hepburn and Peck to visit La Bocca della Verita (the Mouth of Truth) a stone carving rumored to bite off the hands of habitual liars.

Side by side, Hepburn and Peck approach the Mouth of Truth. Hepburn wears her hair cropped and pinned, and a scarf is tied at her neck to conceal its impossible length. A full skirt rides belted high on her concave waist, and she keeps her hands primly behind her back. She is 5’7″, but Peck makes her look adolescent. His shoulders are so massive in his casual gray suit, he looks like he would have to turn sideways, and probably duck, to make it through a doorway. His deep bass words echoes against the stone like the voice of some great and powerful Oz as he explains the myth.

“Oh, that’s awful!” she intones, her voice deep and throaty, a shock in light of her diminutive size, but somehow in keeping with her
persona.

Cocking an eyebrow, Peck dares her to try. Her enormous eyes grow still larger at his challenge, and then she jerks her chin up
defiantly. She brings her left hand from behind her back, draws it intently up to dark hole in the stone, pauses and pulls it back behind her again to safety.

“You try it,” she throws the gauntlet back at him.

He agrees, places his hand in nervously, then shares a victorious grin with Audrey. He moves his hand in a little further. He shouts in apparent pain as his arm disappears in the hole. Audrey screams hoarsely, sharing his panic, and jumps fiercely to the stone mouth to wrestle Peck’s hand from the jaws of an incensed granite deity. Peck pulls his arm back out, but his hand has disappeared – it’s gone! Seeing this, Audrey screams again and buries her face in her narrow white hands.

“Hello,” Peck says affably, extending his hand from the sleeve where he had concealed it.

Audrey looks again. She takes her hands away from her face, balls them into fists, and beats them against Peck’s barrel chest with charmingly ineffectual rage.

“You beast!” she laughs, “It was perfectly all right the whole time.”

Peck had departed from the script to play a joke on the emerging starlet. Everyone was so pleased by her reaction that they kept it in the final film. It was one of many Hepburn moments, a unique cocktail of childish innocence, unflappable courage, and charming femininity that suffused her private personality and her definitive roles: Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady, the title role in Sabrina, and Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, among many others.

After Roman Holiday, Audrey Hepburn was a force to be reckoned with in the entertainment industry, but not everyone knew her name. Hubert de Givenchy, founder of the famous French label, was working on a new collection at his Paris atelier when he was told that Miss Hepburn wished to speak with him. He assumed it was film icon Katherine Hepburn. “Hurrying to greet her,” Givenchy later recalled, “I found myself confronted with a young woman dressed as a gondolier. I was totally astonished.” Audrey eventually wore several pieces from Givenchy’s collection in Sabrina, marking the beginning of a lifelong friendship and professional collaboration.

When Audrey Hepburn played Holly Golightly in 1961′s Breakfast at Tiffany’s, it was Givenchy who lent that quintessential Audrey
elegance to her wardrobe, particularly a black, sleeveless confection. Audrey, wearing the black dress with gloves to her elbows and en elongated cigarette holder, became the most enduring image of her stardom. It inspired a thousand weekend shopping crusades in hopeless imitation. Forty-six years later, that image has such power that is has been copied by the likes of Paris Hilton. In 2006, the little black dress sold at Christie’s auction house in London for nearly $900,000 to an anonymous phone buyer.

But it wasn’t just the clothes that made the woman. Audrey’s innate elegance and self-possession made her a muse for the designer. “One thing that struck me about her,” Givenchy remembers, “was her ability to make herself loved and admired by women as well as men. Her image was unique. This is something that other great actresses have been unable to create for themselves.”

Looking at black-and-white stills of Audrey, a mysterious wisdom seems to linger behind her serene eyes. While the media prefers to focus on the glamour of her professional career, it is no secret that her early days were marked by personal and national tragedy.
Audrey was born on May 4, 1929 to British Bank Joseph Victor Anthony and Dutch Baroness Edda Kathleen van Heemstra Hepburn-Ruston. While she was quite young, her father abandoned the family, and much of her childhood was spent under the Nazi occupation of Holland. Some of her close relatives were executed or sent to concentration camps, and she and her mother sometimes ate tulip bulbs to survive. Audrey, still a young teenager, helped the Dutch resistance by raising money, carrying
messages in her shoes, and even helping a downed paratrooper to safety under the nose of a German soldier. (The British paratrooper she helped to rescue, Terence Young, later directed her in Wait Until Dark.) The Germans surrendered the day after Audrey’s 16th birthday. “So what if my present was a day late,” she later joked, “I got the greatest present in the whole world.”

After the war, Audrey traveled to Great Britain to study ballet and later began to appear on the stage. While appearing in Monte Carlo Baby, she was discovered and cast in Gigi, the role that propelled her to American stardom. But even as she distanced herself physically from her homeland,she carried along with her the weight of her difficult childhood. What was unique about Audrey, though, was not that she had suffered, but the way in which she transformed her personal tragedies into performances that have given comfort, delight, and inspiration to generations.

Later in life, Audrey began to focus her life more directly on the people with whom she identified most directly – children suffering in contexts of poverty and conflict. She began her second career as an ambassador for UNICEF in 1988. On the occasion of her appointment, she said, “I auditioned for this job for forty-five years and I finally got it. I always felt very powerless when I would see the terrible pictures on TV. But I was offered a wonderful opportunity to do something [and it] is a marvelous therapy to the anguish I feel.” It was a personal crusade she cherished, and one that continued until her death from stomach cancer in 1993. To honor her, the United Nations erected a statue in Manhattan called The Spirit of Audrey. The actress would have been 73.

The legend of Audrey, an encapsulation of feminine grace and all-too-real humanity, lives on in her charitable work (The Audrey
Hepburn Children’s Fund is carried on by Sean Ferrer, her only son from her first marriage to Mel Ferrer.) in her many memorable roles, and in the impact she has had across generations. Thanks to my grandmother, my childhood vacations were spent singing along rapturously to a VHS version of My Fair Lady. To see Eliza Doolittle transformed from a street waif into the epitome of elegance and dignity! It was like seeing a miracle transpire slowly on the screen. Knowing the life of this star better, having just touched upon the horrors that shaped her early years, I am more inspired by her obvious composure and grace, and by the striking parallels between her life and her art. When I think of Audrey, I will always think of that far-away smile to her bottomless eyes, that look that persists in spite of personal pain, that look, as Professor Higgins’ mother says,”as if she had always lived in a garden.”

 

Photo Credit: i-dont-wear-dresses.tumblr.com