In a small town in Western Massachusetts called Stockbridge, there is a museum dedicated to the work of the artist Norman Rockwell. A brilliant painter, who described himself as a storyteller, Rockwell was born in New York City in 1894. Later in his career, he moved to Stockbridge. His paintings are renowned for their unique, lifelike style and he is famous for having illustrated the Saturday Evening Post.
Coincidentally, I was also born in New York City and moved to Stockbridge, Massachusetts when I was seven years old. I was exposed to the art of Norman Rockwell many times before I graduated elementary school; his museum was right down the road, and the destination of numerous class trips. I was captivated the moment I set eyes on his artwork. His paintings weave intricate stories and depict realistic moments in everyday life. I see something of myself in every single one of his paintings.
On one particular 7th grade class trip to the Norman Rockwell Museum, we were required to study a painting and try to draw it ourselves. I came across Girl At Mirror and knew instantly that it was my favorite painting in the world. I fell in love with its lonely, solitary appeal and at the same time I was awestruck by its grandeur. I spent the next hour trying to sketch it, but wound up only with a pile of waded paper littered around my feet and a broken pencil in my hand. Some paintings are meant to be looked at, not copied.
Girl At Mirror is a simple painting of a young girl sitting in front of a mirror, a look of quiet, sad concentration on her face. In her lap is a magazine open to a photo of a beautiful actress. The girl is trying to emulate the face of the actress, but failing. She has brown hair and dark eyes. The little girl’s desire to be an adult, to skip the torment of her awkward age, spoke to me in a way that no other painting ever had.
Upon reflection, it is not unusual for a young girl to covet the fashion and glamour of grown-up actresses. It is the desire of every girl to be as beautiful as the women in magazines. But when I was that age, self-conscious and shy, I felt completely alone, like the girl in the painting. She sits in a dark room, clothed in the innocence of a white dress, with a mirror propped up against a chair and a forgotten doll on the floor. She is making the transition from youth to adulthood, trading her dolls for magazines and make-up.
Though I am much older now, and can’t relate to the painting like I used to, I still remember how it affected me when I was young. The painting provided a symbolic reflection for my developing into a woman. And despite my inability to copy the painting, Rockwell inspired me to keep making art. He was the first artist that truly made me feel as though even the everyday lives of ordinary people could be beautiful. I began noticing that pieces of life could become art, that the ordinary could become the extraordinary. Even a simple moment, like the loneliness of a young girl looking into a mirror, can contain symbolism that is uniquely meaningful to each person who looks at it. While many critics dismissed Rockwell’s art as being too idealistic and sentimental, I believe his intent was to draw attention to the irony of human tragedy by creating overly exaggerated scenes of the cookie-cutter American lifestyle. Because of Rockwell, I immersed myself in the study of art. Eventually, I sold two paintings at an art gallery in Honolulu, and to this day I draw, paint, write, and make movies, dedicating myself to art just like Norman Rockwell did.
When I look at Girl at Mirror now, it occurs to me that when she grows up, that little girl will be ten times as beautiful as the woman in the magazine.