Faces ‘like landscapes’
Kathy Drago reveals hidden stories in portraits of older women
Artist Kathy Drago is displaying 11 of her lively paintings of older women at Bill’s Junk, the funky junk-store-gallery in the Heights. Those “Late Life Snapshots,” as she calls the series, show the faces of women between 75 and 100 years old. She talked about her work recently at her Glassell School Block Program studio, where dozens of other paintings from the series cover a wall.
Q: What got you started with this series?
A: I was reading “Women in Late Life” by Martha Holstein, a college professor who teaches gender and geriatric studies. She wrote that when you get old, unless you have some sort of debilitating, painful disease, you’re usually happy. Most elders say they’re the happiest they have ever been. I thought, “That’s interesting.” I’d been painting abstracts. I’d ordered these little 10x10 wood panels — I think they’re meant for woodworking — just to practice on. On one of those, I painted “Miss B.” She’d been a principal at an HISD school, and she’s a hero of mine. (I was a principal in a Pearland school, before I retired in 2012.) That turned out to be the first of the series.
After I painted my third one, I ordered those wood panels by the hundred.
The women are what gerontologists call “the old old,” people between 75 and 100. I’m hoping
to paint 100 of these. I’ve got around 65 now.
Q: What interests you about those women?
A: After I’d painted the first few, it came to me one day why I was doing it. My mom had died recently. I’m now the last of my childhood family alive. And I’m asking myself: “How do I get old?”
I was thinking about women politically, too, with the #MeToo movement. Somewhere I read that some businessman said he was afraid to be around women at work unless they were over 35. And I thought, “What the hell?! You can’t be around women if they’re under 35? And women over 35 are no longer sexually attractive?” It’s like women become invisible when they’re no longer sexually attractive.
It’s hard to paint a young woman. There’s nothing you can do with the face. But with these old gals, there’s nothing symmetric anymore. Their faces are like landscapes. There’s so much going on — a whole lifetime on a face.
People ask why I don’t paint men. Sometimes I say it’s because there are so few women shown in museums — unless they’re young, naked models.
Q: Are they modeled on real people?
A: Some of these portraits I painted from obit photos. My grandma was a florist. I used to read obituaries to her while she was making casket covers. We’d talk about how obituaries and photos encapsulate a life.
Some of the women are friends’ mothers. One lady came in my studio and said, “Why don’t you paint me?”
I have to be careful when I ask women if I can paint them. People say, “Do you think I’m old?”
This gal here (points to the painting titled “Dodie”) is Dodie Meeks, who used to write for the Galveston Daily News. She said, “Why did you give me so many wrinkles?” I said, “Dodie, you’re 93! I left lots of them out.”
These are not faithful portraits. This gal (“Chickie”), I saw her on “Antiques Roadshow” and said, “I’ve got to paint her.” But I gave her this wild hair. Her neck looked like chicken skin. So I made this wrinkle, here on her jowl, look like a wishbone.
Q: How do you make each face tell a story?
A: I have a theater background. When I was 18, I majored in theater because with theater, you get to be with other people. With art, you spend a lot of time by yourself.
When I paint, I try to build a character. I think, “What’s in her heart? What does she want? How does her voice sound?” I give them all names.
And when I’m photographing women to paint, I get them to tell me a story, then while they’re talking, I take a photo burst. People make the best expressions when they’re talking.
Q: How have people reacted to them?
A: The coolest public response has been this guy, about 20 years old, who was touring the studios. He stood here, staring at this configuration, for a long time. Then he said, “I’m sorry, Grandma, I didn’t mean to.”