the first block printing experience I had was in grade 9 or 10 art class, which I took in grade 11 and 12.
Important context: I kept diaries through my teen years, and in re-reading those diaries, I've come to a new understanding of my queerness. Every few months, I'd write about how weird it was that I was attracted to women, because like, I'm totally not gay, but like, some women are just so attractive??? And then I'd make long lists of all the various women I found attractive despite my certainty that I was not like, INTO women. Natalie Portman was on most of those lists.
And then she was in this movie, Closer, where she played this manic pixie dream stripper, and said things like "lying is the most fun a girl can have without taking her clothes off... but it's better if you do", and my gay little baby heart didn't know what to do with that, so I made a block print in art class of Natalie Portman from the movie Closer.
I don't know what happened to that print, because I didn't think of my art as something worth keeping, but as I've gotten into printmaking again as an adult, I keep feeling this pang for teenage me. She was so proud of that print, she hung it in her locker - I think that might have been the first time I was ever proud of myself for a creation like that, honestly.
Finding joy in making art lately, I decided to recreate that print. It's not done done yet, but I've carved my block and done some test prints, and I'm real delighted every time I look at all the work I've done. It feels kind of like I'm gently folding my 16-year-old self into a hug while saying, in a soothing tone of voice, "you big dumb homo, you are GAY", and petting her hair while she figures out what to do with that piece of information. Making this art feels warm and kind to my teenage self, in a way that my teenage self wouldn't have believed I could feel towards her, because she just assumed she was unworthy of love at her core.
Baby gay teenage Em, it's okay to be gay for Natalie Portman.
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