When I look at Rockwell I really cannot equate
any part of my life with the one I see on the canvas. Looking at
the smiling faces I do not feel as though I must compare my life to them,
and therefore, do not buy into Rockwell’s mythology. While I do enjoy
looking at Rockwell paintings and sketches I do not aspire to be like them.
I think that Rockwell’s impact was much stronger in earlier times.
Today, there is more room for deviation from the “norm” (that is mother,
father, smiling children…); therefore a person can be perfectly happy with
their un-Rockwellian lifestyle. Years back there was the right way
and the wrong way. The social construction of reality stated the
right and wrong way to do things. You did not want to step outside
the accepted lines. The one Rockwell that means anything to me is
“Girl at the mirror.” I see a lot of myself in the little girl sitting
at the mirror. She is aspiring to be more than she is, trying to
be like a face on a magazine page. I often feel as though I need
to be more than I am, but when I try to, I learn that it is hopeless.