On Jan. 28th, I was delighted to find out that Henry Feather (www.henryfeather.com), award winning photographer who has been making portraits for more than 25 years, and I, were partnered together for Double Vision. CAPIC's Double Vision is a portrait exhibition/competition which pairs up professional image creators (usually a photographer and an illustrator) to create portraits of each other.Henry and I chatted about hobbies, passions, mentors, friends in common. Henry filled me in on the history of CAPIC’s Double Vision. It started as a way to get illustrators more involved (there are about 10 photographers for every illustrator in CAPIC). The topic of roller derby came up. Derby girl culture sounded fun and interesting. Costumes, make-up, piercings, tattoos and tutu’s... such great theme possibilities!
Researching how I would portray Henry, I watched Norman Jewison’s Rollerball (1975) and the remake (2002). The 1975 version of Rollerball takes place in the future (2018) when corporations are running the world and the game of rollerball exists not merely to satisfy man's bloodlust, but to demonstrate the futility of individual effort. My idea for Henry’s portrait would be to illustrate him as the last surviving rollerball player, a hero, skating around the track with the crowds cheering, essentially defeating the purpose of the game.
Putting together my costume was fun! I bought a Barbie t-shirt and messed it up. Now I had my very own roller derby name!
Henry shot many frames of Barbie Hurls and emailed me over 70 wonderful shots to look at.
With less than a week to go before submission, I started my painting. This is the sketch I used.
Here is one of the studies I did to get familiar with Henry's facial features.
Henry's Double Vision portrait
Henry and I had a blast dressing up our presentation board in 'grunge' style, using distressed wafer board splattered with blood (acrylic paint- no image creators were harmed in the making of our portraits) and adorned with duct tape.
Henry Feather (right) with his son Harrison at the Double Vision Gala Opening, March 6th, 2014. (Photo by Angelina Coccimiglio)
What fun! Can’t wait for next year’s Double Vision!