When I was pregnant with my daughter, we had to put my grandfather in a nursing home. His wife had just died, and we realized he could no longer live on his own. (My grandmother passed away years before, so this was the love of his life for the last 17 years.) It was an incredibly emotional time for my family; I wasn’t the only one crying at the drop of a hat.—
One day, as we were going through their house trying to decide what to keep/what to donate/what to sell, I walked into the master bedroom and was struck by an image–a silhouette of myself at age six. Maybe it was the pregnancy hormones, but seeing my silhouette took me back in a way no photograph could. I no longer wanted to be an adult grandchild helping her family through a crisis. I longed for the days of my youth, when this black bust of my likeness, mounted on blue construction paper and framed in gold, hung in my grandparents’ entryway. When I ran barefoot on their brown shag carpet and baked mud pies on their back porch.
My first grade teacher, Mrs. Goodness (yes, that was her real name), traced the silhouette on a piece of construction paper taped to the chalkboard. I remember her lining up the light from an overhead projector so my shadow would fall in the center of the paper. My hair was pulled back in a ponytail and tied with a ribbon, bangs curled. I was dressed (from the look of it) in an Oxford button-down with a sweater on top. I remember Mrs. Goodness’ rosy cheeks and her Mrs. Claus-like reading glasses. She smelled faintly of cold cream and drove a shiny, yellow Volkswagen Beetle.
When I saw that a silhouette artist was coming to a local children’s store a few weeks ago, I immediately booked an appointment for my daughter. The streets of Brooklyn are a long way from the plains of Oklahoma. She’s growing up in a very different world than her mother did. Maybe her silhouette will ground her in a little family history. Maybe someday it’ll make her nostalgic for her childhood. A mom can hope.
You can find online tutorials for making silhouette art here, here and here. Not crafty? Send a photo to an online shop that makes digital prints (pictured at top of page) or an artist who cuts silhouette portraits by hand.
