Free Daughters of the Revolution by Carolyn Cooke

Heads.”
    Carole wore blue jeans—against the rules, even for boys—and a tight green military jacket. She remained in the back of the room with her slide projector, even after applause called her forward.
    “In my first year at Goode,” Carole began, “I tried to fit in, excel and follow the path described to me by my mother and by all the adults around me as the path toward freedom. My mother—who can’t be with us tonight because she works a minimum-wage job with no protections and doesn’t own a car—is an exceptionally strong-willed person, and for a long time I thought I wanted what she wanted. Here at Goode, I began to see freedom as the actual opposition to racist and sexist oppression, although the subject of ‘freedom’ begs the question of who is ‘free’ and at what cost—and includes the whole history of oppression and the whole history of the oppressor. Instead of coming to Goode and learning to identify with the oppressor and gain freedom that way, I’ve come to define myself
by
my difference and otherness—inhabit and
suffer
it in the sense ofthe Latin root, meaning ‘to endure.’ To suffer includes the act of bearing suffering; it’s a form of transcendence and action. In the same way, I’ve chosen to take power over my art by painting only the Other—the white, the male, the symbols of oppression to me personally and to the culture as a whole.
    “My project,” Carole went on, “is called ‘The Venerable Heads.’ It’s a series of portraits exploring representations of the venerable. What do we venerate and what does the object of our veneration have in common with what we have venerated before? What signals the presence of authority and power? In traditional portraiture, the subject presents the face of his venerability. He’s depicted with his special finery, against a backdrop that serves as evidence of his wealth or position. In this slide, Gilbert Stuart’s ‘unfinished’ portrait of George Washington suggests through unpainted canvas that Washington, the figure, the character, is not yet ‘finished’ or sealed by history. The impression of humanity, or progress of the individual, is in this way heightened.” She ran through some slides of seventeenth-century Dutchmen and portraits by John Singleton Copley, showing men posed with their dogs and tools. “In more contemporary work,” she went on, “portraits consolidate social, moral, political or economic influence—heads of state or heads of corporations or organizations. The subject is made as static as possible to convey the impression of stability and solidity, as much as these impressions can be conveyed by a head.
    “I’ve tried, for my senior project, to learn these techniques of the patriarchy, so that I can subvert them in my own work.”
    She walked along the exhibition wall and pulled away the black cloths that covered six of the heads, each rendered in a yearbook-style black and white, except for some canny work she had done with the eyes, every pair a different color—blue, green, brown, yellow, gray and red. Finally, she unveiled God’s portrait as head of the school. It met with silence, followed by a yelp of laughter. A classical portrait, it lacked any of the usualfastenings—chest, shoulders, neck. The head simply rested on the bottom of the canvas, and offered a likeness that slightly flattered its subject.
    “What a shame,” said Mrs. Graves. “It would have been lovely to hang these in the hall.”
    “It
would
be fascinating to actually hang them,” said Ms. Bruns, who taught drama. “Something interesting to look at and provocative to think about.”
    “Carole is a gifted painter, and, more important, her work challenges
consciousness
,” Julia Singer said.
    A hand shot up. “If you are interested in black power, Carole, why didn’t you invent an Afro-feminist way of painting, rather than reusing and perverting the traditional, European portrait techniques?”
    “The European