Iconographic self portrait

Symbols: book, left, egg, ant, apron, blindness, heather

It is very difficult to choose visual symbols to represent yourself. Humans are infinitely complicated, and constantly changing, and while an image or icon may have great meaning to an individual at one point, it could become meaningless later, or its meaning could completely change. In my iconographic self-portrait, I chose images whose meanings I feel are more abstract than concrete, intentionally leaving a fair amount of interpretation up to the viewer. Rather that using found images or materials, I drew my icons by hand with graphite. Avoiding imagery that already existed gave me more control over how the images interacted with each other and expressed my intentions more successfully than images created by someone else.

I chose to present my icons within a book, a structural form which is in itself meaningful to me. As an artist, I have a lot of experience creating books as art. For me, the book form represents my own growth as an artist. I never felt like a successful artist until I found the medium of book art. It also represents my struggle as an artist to create books which are seen as art, rather than craft. Because the book (which could initally appear to be a piece of craft) opens, and the pages held within are clearly artwork, the book represents this balance between art and craft that I struggle to find.

The image on the cover of the book shows my own left hand. This drawing represents my last name, Esguerra. My name comes from my father’s side of the family. His parents immigrated from the Phillipine Islands, which were long ago conquered by Spain. Esguerra, which would mean “is war” in Spanish, is not a Spanish name. Instead, it is a bastardization of the Spanish word izquierda, which means left. Left-handedness has negative connotations in many cultures, because people who are left handed are a small minority. When my left-handed dad was a child, his grandfather tried to force him to write with his right hand. In Phillipine culture, being left-handed was once a sign of dirtiness and evil. I chose to include a drawing of my own left hand because, while I don’t hold the same prejudices as my ancestors about left-handed people, that is a part of my past.

The second page depicts an egg, with an ant beside the egg and an ant on the egg. I chose to combine these two symbols to create a sense of discord in the imagery, and for the symbolism of the juxtaposition itself. According the the University of Michigan’s online Dictionary of Symbolism, the egg is a “symbol of new life.” They cite the ant as a symbol of “diligence and industriousness,” often associated with “prudence and forethought.” The ants symbolize my own hard-working nature, and my ability to plan ahead. Rather than expecting good things to come my way, I create positive outcomes. I intentionally work steadily and plan ahead, like the ants in Aesop’s fable about the hardworking ant and the procrastinating grasshopper. The egg represents what can come of my own diligence, and the “new life” that can come of hard work.

The third image depicts a woman dressed in an apron, with dark hatch marks instead of eyes. To me, the inability to see represents blindness. The apron is cited by the Dictionary of Symbolism as denoting fertility, and an association with “work and craftsmanship.” I see aprons as femenine symbols, which is why I drew the woman in a suggestive yet restrained pose. Aprons indicate the type of work that women have traditionally done in the home, which is something I have a lot of respect for. The fact that she is blind refers both to my own mother being legally blind, and the effect that’s had on my own life, as well as less physical blindness. I see this image of mental or emotional blindness as a depiction of refusal to ackowledge realities about how women are viewed and treated in American society.

The final page shows the flowers of the heather plant. This plant, Calluna vulgaris, has Celtic associations with cleanliness and purity. The brooms the Celts made were most commonly made of the heather plant. My middle name is Heather, and my parents have called me by my middle name since birth. I chose to draw the flower very close up, rather than the entire plant, to create a sense of visual intimacy which refers to the parent-child relationship.