Amy Lu's View

As the great sages The Eagles told us, “You can’t hide your lyin’ eyes.” 

I offer that you also can’t hide your big scary eyes. Or maybe you can, but why would you? I recently gave myself big, scary eyes on purpose for all the world to see as part of our church “Art Challenge.”

Simply put, an art challenge involves people recreating a famous work of art in some way. The possibilities are just about endless–the art can be recreated with food, toys, another type of art, and of course, photography. I don’t know if they originated with COVID-19 lockdown but I think they have flourished with folks having some extra time and pent up creativity and needing a socially distanced outlet. 

When I learned my church was doing an art challenge, I pondered for weeks about how I could participate. I certainly wasn’t obligated to make an entry but I just couldn’t pass up on an opportunity to “create content” (as it’s referred to in our favorite podcast/cult “TBTL”). I couldn’t miss the chance to perform/sing/write/etc. some thing that would (potentially) be viewed/consumed by (forced upon) other people. 

Taking a  photo that copied a piece of art seemed the easiest route. But what in the world could I recreate? I needed something that only required a simple costume and background, and didn’t involve nudity on my part. Working StanLee into the photo would be an added bonus and an easy way to pander (there was no way I was going attempt using the cats–dubious at the best of times, but the poor girls have StanLee-induced PTSD these days and are particularly skittish and dangerous). 

As the deadline to submit an entry loomed, inspiration hit–could I do one of those “big-eyed” painting recreations?

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I’m only aware of the Big Eyed paintings because of my friend Amy. During lockdown I have seen the Big Eyed painting she owns hanging behind her during numerous online meetings. 

I knew the painting that Amy owns wouldn’t work for me to do as a recreation, but she informed me that it was by the artist Margaret Keane. It didn’t take me too much Googling to find a Margaret Keane painting called “Beach Bums II” that featured a dog and a simple outfit and background that I thought StanLee and I could reasonably recreate. I was especially happy to find a dog with coloring similar to StanLee’s, as many of the dogs in Margaret Keane’s works are white. 

I’m not going to try and tackle the works of Margaret Keane or the whole genre of Big Eyed artwork. I’ve barely scratched the surface of learning about it, but I highly encourage my readers to explore it and learn more. It seems fascinating and weird. I will say that you may be familiar with Margaret Keane from the movie “Big Eyes” and know that her husband tried to take credit for her work. Why were/are these creepy, depressing, disturbing, and scary pieces popular? Art truly is subjective. 

Once I had a piece to re-create, my biggest factor was timing–when would Chad and I both be available so he could take the photo? (Yes Chad was only willing to be involved because this theoretically benefited our church). When would StanLee be relatively chill? And then we had the logistics of determining where we would stage the recreation. A-ha!–we have a blue wall in our hallway outside of the bathroom! Would it be hard to take the art down that was already hanging there so I could stand in front of it? Would Chad have to stand in the bathtub to take the photo (he did not). 

The submission was due Friday by noon, so we rather spontaneously decided to take the photo late Thursday morning before Chad took StanLee to daycare…Yes! I found the blue sweater I thought I had without too much digging in my closet. Yes! I was able to find and slather on some deep blue eyeshadow around my eyes. Yes! StanLee looked at the camera for one photo without wiggling too much.

No! I wasn’t fully able to remove the eyeshadow before I had an online video meeting with colleagues who didn’t know me. 

Yes! I was able to enter something in the church art challenge that was funny and creepy and slightly disturbing (it disturbed us anyway, and not just because my chin seems to be disintegrating). Chad even made a valiant attempt to be meta and take credit for the work (just like Margaret Keane’s husband) during our artists statement at the reveal party but I think it went over all of our heads (it certainly went over mine. Maybe StanLee got it). 

And not only did I get to MAKE CONTENT, I got to be part of a fun and amazing community event that featured extremely creative works by my fellow church members. Once again, I was blown away by the ingenuity and talent of these folks–not to mention the attention to detail. 

It’s enough to make my big eyes big in wonder (rather than terror or dread or despair–or at least in addition to).