Erzulie Fitzgerald
More than any other paintings from Apple Pie, Erzulie Fitzgerald embodies the cultural mash-up that is the new world. My portrait of a Haitian-American woman as Ella Fitzgerald with references to the Voodoo goddess Erzulie Freda also made me use a medium I never dreamed I’d use!
When I met Judith, the subject of Erzulie Fitzgerald, she made it clear to me just how important singing and music were to her. Quickly enough, we decided that Ella Fitzgerald would be a good icon fit for her.
Still, that left the problem of how to emphasize Judith’s Haitian origins in the painting. So I did a lot of research into the arts of this complex culture and I came across the practice of combining the iconography of Catholic saints with the various Voodoo gods. Originally, this allowed the first Haitians—slaves brought over from Africa—to worship their gods without fear of reprimand from their owners.
Yves Telemak’s Erzulie Freda
These mash-ups involve elaborate re-makings of the images of the saints. Lithographs of the figures of the Catholic pantheon are sewn over with sequins in patterns telling the story of the new world gods and often leaving only the flesh in the Christian images showing.
Looking into the characters of the Voodoo gods, it became clear that Erzulie Freda was a good fit for Ella Fitzgerald. This particular Voodoo loa can be thought of as a cross between Aphrodite and the Virgin Mary. Erzulie Freda seduces: she is a lover who is forever luckless in love. She adores jewelry and cosmetics, and she represents feminine grace and beauty.
The first step to making Erzulie Fitzgerald was creating my own “lithograph” to be sewn over with sequins.
I worked on unmounted canvas to create a likeness of a singing Judith, wearing a hat like Ella’s in the famous photo of the singer.
Before deciding on this one, I looked into the various shapes of microphones I might use for Erzulie Fitzgerald.
It was important that the mic be of Ella’s era and also that it resemble radio studio equipment.
Haiti’s high illiteracy rate means that radio is the source of news and entertainment in the island nation, but, more than that, radio is a tool for democracy in a country too often oppressed by dictators. Radio was first introduced in the 1920s with the US occupation, but it’s been a major cultural influence since the 1970s when it helped the population to mobilize against the government.
With all that in mind, I asked Judith which present-day radio station she’d like to be associated with and she chose Radio Solidarité.
Once I had the portrait painting at a good place, I set about sewing it onto the backing that I’d prepared. I used the textured weave of monk’s cloth to reference the yellow basket of Ella’s famous song “A-Tisket, A-Tasket.”
This was as much as I had planned to do, but, once I got the piece to this point, it was obvious that it would need more than a border of sequins. The work of sewing one sequin at a time was long and repetitive but extremely satisfying in the end. I’m not sure that I’d do it without a reason as compelling as the one I had for Erzulie Fitzgerald, but I’m glad I did it for this piece.
Gwenn Seemel
Erzulie Fitzgerald (Haitian-American)
2008
acrylic and sequins on canvas and monk’s cloth
22 x 19 inches
(detail below)
This portrait is the smallest of the paintings from Apple Pie, a series big in both number and size. And this article is the last in the series revealing the process of making the series.
It’s strange: I can’t believe that the end of Apple Pie is approaching. This series has consumed me for almost four years now, from the moment I came up with the concept in late 2005. After adopting allegorical portraiture, publishing two editions of the book about the series, and touring the show to Eugene, I don’t want Apple Pie’s run to end!
The show is up at DIVA through 27 June, Tuesday through Saturday 12 to 5. There will be one last hurrah for this series before it closes: on 19 June at noon, I’ll be talking about the process of making these 21 paintings. The talk will feature slides of the paintings in process.
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CATEGORIES: - Process images - Featuring artists - Apple Pie -
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