Apple Pie is my upcoming series about what it means to be an American. The subjects are mostly immigrants and the children of immigrants, along with one African American, one Native American, and one American-American (a person whose family has been in the US for many generations). Each of the subjects’ likenesses is combined with the image of an American icon, anyone from Elvis Presley to Susan B. Anthony.
If Snow Days is dedicated to my father, then Apple Pie belongs to my mother.
Anxious to be anywhere but her native France, my mother immigrated to Canada in her twenties. She came to the US with my father, a long-time Montrealite but an American by birth. I have my father to thank for my American citizenship, but I have my mother to thank for knowing how lucky that makes me.
Through my mother, I have an intimate knowledge of another culture. It isn’t simply the superficial understanding gleaned from travel, but concrete insights gained from real commitments outside of the US, in the form of family obligations which divide me between two continents.
What’s more, fluency in French (learned by total immersion when I was young) helps me to comprehend just how much of an outsider I am when I visit France. It’s very clear that the French culture is not mine, but also that I could choose it instead of the US at any time. With the help of the language, I could become (almost) fully French instead of American. In other words, my transitional status allows me to choose where and, to some degree, whom to be.
I’ve chosen the United States. My intimate knowledge of another country helps me to appreciate the US, even when it disappoints me. In a way, it makes me more American than someone whose family has been here for generations.
The United States are, originally, a nation of choosers. For everyone except those with Native blood or African origins early on, our ancestors chose to be here. Maybe all that the US needs now is for every one of us to actively choose it again.
Grant Wood’s American Gothic 1930
This painting was conceived as the double portrait of an old maid and her father (the models were actually the artist’s sister and his dentist). Wood was addressing a particular kind of sanctimonious stalwartness that he felt defined the Midwest at the time. He was poking fun at small-town self-righteous types, and, when the painting debuted, the targets of his satire were not pleased with it. Then again, neither were the modernist pundits. Wood’s focus was too figurative and too regional to be considered avant-garde. At its inception, the piece had only a handful of champions, but with their help it became a painted image to rival the Mona Lisa in its omnipresence (in the US at least).
I decided to remake American Gothic for a new generation of Americans. My subjects are a real-life father and daughter. Cherif immigrated to the United States from France but he is originally from Algeria. His daughter’s name is Taous.
Sketching on the panel.
I wanted my version, Amazigh Gothic, to be the foil to American Gothic‘s exaggerated plainness. I chose particularly dynamic expressions for Cherif and Taous.
A first blush of color.
The title comes from the Berber word for “free men.” “Amazigh” is what the native people of North Africa call themselves. Cherif is Kabyle, a Berber of Algeria.
Working certain elements out.
Changing the window detailing from the original Gothic style shown in American Gothic.
Solidifying things and layering color.
I don’t often depict architecture, as is evident in the not-so-straight lines of the roof!
Working to get the window and the house just right.
Amazigh Gothic (Algerian-American)
2008
acrylic on panel
25 x 30 inches
detail of Amazigh Gothic
This cameo is the smallest portrait I’ve ever made. It’s Taous’ mother, the woman who, among other things, gave Taous her American citizenship.
detail of Amazigh Gothic
American Gothic‘s window detailing isn’t just the reason for the painting’s name, it’s actually the reason for the painting itself! The artist saw the house, window and all, in Eldon, Iowa, and decided to imagine the kind of people who might live in it.
Wood loved that the Gothic style of architecture had found its way from cathedrals in France to the American prairie’s private homes.
The detailing in the window in Amazigh Gothic references the shape on the Kabyle flag. The pattern is reproduced again in Cherif’s overall bib. I also replaced the spots on the daughter’s smock with peacock feather eyes since Taous’ name means “peacock.”
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Information about Grant Wood’s famous painting comes from Steven Biel’s book American Gothic (W.W. Norton & Company, New York, 2005).
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