Nicole M. Hanna "Self Portrait"

The piece I’ve made for this Self Portrait project is pretty self explanatory, I think! I chose to make an image of myself, surrounded by several, but not all, of the things I enjoy in my life, depicted in cartoon-ish “thought bubbles”. These are the things I think about most, care about most; things that, in general, make me who I am. On the far right are flowers, which represent my love for gardening and nature. Next to that you’ll see a bad rendition of two of my vices, Jack Daniels and cigarettes. Next are three stick figures representing my husband and two sons. The light bulb represents my “aha moments” that I have quite often when an idea strikes me, or I finally “get” something that had previously escaped me, all too often revealing my tendency to be quite “blonde”. The next one depicts the two little loves in my life, my black Chihuahua Spike, and my newest baby, Roxie the Yorkie, whom I recently stole from Faye Malench. Last but not least is a book, representing my love for reading, learning, and writing.

At times I can be quite ornery, so I have that little devil sitting on my shoulder, which is usually responsible for steering me off path. Other times I try to behave, so the little angel gets credit for those times…although, you might notice she’s not a pure white angel…she’s a little tarnished, which explains why I‘m never too well behaved!

My project was done all in glass, which in itself represents my most favorite pastime. I began with two 12” circles of BE Tekta full fused together to attain proper volume. I then used powdered frit mixed with CMC to “paint” on my images. My face, the devil, angel, and light bulb were all done with this method. The thought bubbles were done separately, also done with liquid stringer, but then later tack fused onto the main piece. The book was done using a candy mold and the freeze and fuse method. The hair consists of a base full fuse using liquid stringer and loose frit in Woodland Brown and Amber. Tack fused on top of that is custom made vitrograph stringers, in amber and French vanilla, in an effort to assimilate the varying shades of blonde in my hair. The lips look a little “injected” which is not indicative of my own at all…frit tends to spread when you least want it to! All in all I am pleased with the results, but if I had to do it over again I would have built it on a colored base, and filled in the face area with a skin tone.