My Sordid Past And New Relationships
I’m not sure how common this is in the rest of the country, but there are many Southern homes that still love their portraiture.
(If you are imagining English royals sitting on velvet tufts while petting King Charles Spaniels as you read “portraiture,” you wouldn’t be that far off the mark. Though, personally, I and no one I know have ever been painted on a velvet tuft, I can’t say for sure that it hasn’t occurred in the 21st century. The dog is also not out of the question. In my part of the country, it’s just more likely to be a lab in an outdoor scene than a lap dog.)
Olan Mills doesn’t count here. I’m talking about honest-to-goodness, calls-for-a-sitting, put-forever-in-oil portrait.
I believe portraits of children are most common – the kind with girls in smocked and French hand sewn dresses (you’ll have to Google it) and boys in, well, similar smocked and French hand sewn outfits. (In the South, we really don’t have issues with dressing boys much like girls until at least the age of two. Usually their smocked outfits are jumpers or shorts, but there are no guarantees.)
Some homes have portraits of adults, and there are even some people known to have nude portraits of themselves. The former are often rather wealthy. The latter are usually discussed in whispers at cocktail parties.
Personally, I have three portraits hanging in my parents’ house. One is actually in pastels, so I’m not sure I have to count it, but I’m in smocked dress, and I’m two. The second portrait is of my mother, my sisters and me. Again, my sisters and I are in very delicate dresses. I think I was six. The last, and final portrait, is of me at 17 in the dress from my junior cotillion. (Some day I will subtitle my memoir “Tales of an Irreverent Debutante.” Until then, I’ll leave the topic of cotillions alone.)
Now, portraits are hardly likely to come up in day-to-day conversation. Most of the time, I forget they even exist. I also tend to forget all of the other pictures from childhood to adolescence that my mom and dad still have. That is, until, a boyfriend is invited to the house to meet the parents. In the living room, the two following questions always ensue:
1. Is that you on a five and half foot canvas hung in a gold frame in the living room?
2. When was your hair red?
The answers are:
1. Yes. My mom likes portraits. Wouldn’t you rather check out the one of my sister in her bowl cut years? (Sorry to throw you under the bus, Sis.)
2. Off and on between the ages of 15 and 20. I was also blond at 22. If there’s a hair color, I’ve had it.
In my father’s study, we get into even more trouble:
"Why are you in a hoop skirt?"
It’s that one that takes a little longer to explain. (Note to reader: the hoop skirt is in a photo and not a portrait, just like the Birmingham Belle ceremony is separate from the junior cotillion. I wore the hoop skirt twice – once as a Belle and once for Halloween. For the sake of family peace, I’ll just say that I wasn’t too excited about joining that organization.)
For the uninitiated, the Birmingham Belles are a group of girls chosen to represent Arlington, Birmingham’s only remaining antebellum home. Arlington is also open for tours and home to a museum. Originally, Belles had all sorts of civic duties, like going to community functions and giving tours of the house. Then, thank heavens, Birmingham finally caught on to the fact that sending girls in hoop skirts, hats and white gloves to the airport to pick up visitors was a) incredibly embarrassing and b) not exactly doing a lot for the image of “The New South.” They also realized that self-guided tours were sufficient for a home with 7 rooms.
My friend and I attended one volunteer event as Birmingham Belles, and it was a bake sale where we wore jeans. I think I was still embarrassed even though we didn’t have our bloomers on.
In short, the visual artifacts of my adolescence can be quite fascinating – especially if you’re not from here. You also have some frightening insight into the kinds of information a Mills boyfriend is bound to discover.
* I apologize that the hoop skirt photo is not available at this time.