Geena Davis: Forever Muse

Geena Davis in Hero. Pencil on paper. 2013. // Geena Davis in Hero. Digital. 2019.

When I first saw geena davis in beetlejuice, I knew… “I’m gonna draw this woman over and over again for the next sixteen years of my life, at least…”

I’m just joking. But I was infatuated with her from that point on.

When I was 11, my 11th birthday in fact, I fell in love with Geena Davis. Like, in love. Here’s the play-by-play that nobody asked for: a bunch of my friends were sleeping over that night and Beetlejuice (1988) was playing all weekend long on ABC Family (in the middle of April, for some reason). That’s the movie we chose to watch. As soon as Barbara Maitland popped on screen for the first time, everything in me came to a screeching halt. I’d never before experienced what I was feeling in that moment. I was just overcome with how… pretty she was, and how she sounded, and what her hair was doing. So much so, that I was barely focusing on the rest of the movie.

I would later (9 years later, to be exact) discover that these feelings were what the kids call “having a crush”, because I was (and still am) a lesbian. I obviously didn’t know what crush feelings felt like at that time, all I knew was that I needed to learn everything I could about the woman who played Barbara immediately. The next day, after all my friends were picked up by their parents, I shuffled into our computer room, plopped into our giant office chair, opened Internet Explorer, and got to work.

I googled Beetlejuice. The first link that popped up was for the film’s IMdB page. (This was also my introduction to IMdB! A website that tells you every movie a person’s been in and every person that’s been in a movie??? Incredible, exactly what I needed. Hey, IMdB, sponsor me, maybe?) I’d discovered that the actress who played Barbara Maitland was named Geena Davis (“what a cool name!”), and that she was also in a lot of other movies that I’d heard of! A League of Their Own (1992), which I’d never seen, but now wanted to see more than anything. The Fly (1986), which I’d somehow heard of by age 11, and would now be seeking out at way too young an age. Thelma and Louise (1991), which I’d heard of because it’s one of those movies that’s so consistently referenced in pop culture that you just grow up knowing what it is. But, not only was she in Thelma and Louise, she was Thelma! Oh, I had a bounty in front of me. So many treasures for me to hunt for. I made it my mission, then and there, to watch every single thing she’s acted in. (I’ve succeeded, if you were curious.)

Paralleled to this sudden journey was another one: my art journey! Around that same time, I was just beginning to discover that I had a talent for drawing, and I’d had an acute fascination with drawing people. I began drawing a lot of portraits of different people I’d seen in movies or tv shows, but I’d drawn Geena Davis the most. As a tiny performing “straight”, I was simply telling myself that I was drawing her all the damn time because she was a “style icon” and that other people who are fascinated with style icons artistically recreate all the time. Or it was because she had really interesting features to draw, and that was helping me grow as an artist. And those things are true! But also, wake up, silly, you wanna kiss her on the mouth!

So yeah, I went on and on, clueless throughout my teenage years, and didn’t realize this very obvious fact until I was 20 years old. And when I did realize, all of this infatuation I’d grown up with made so much sense. So much sense, in fact, that it was almost painfully hilarious to me. I’d been posting this woman on Instagram as my #wcw for years, like, “Love her outfits! #styleicon”. And then, every once in a while, I’d find a photo of 90’s Johnny Depp or 90’s Leo DiCaprio and pepper in a cursory #mcm, just so that nobody would assume I was a lesbian or something, because like, I totally was not. Like, COME ON. That’s fucking hilarious.

Now I embrace the hell out of it, obviously. 16 years later, and I have a gigantic crush on this woman, still, because, I mean, have you seen a photo of her?? She’s fucking gorgeous. Have you seen her in any one of her insanely iconic movies?? She’s unbelievably talented! Have you read her 2023 memoir, Dying of Politeness?? She’s- okay, I’ll shut up. I used to try and be subtle about it, or whatever, but who cares, everybody has a celebrity crush that they’d do anything for, we’re all gonna die one day, who cares.

I drew Geena Davis, and portraits in general, only in pencil on computer paper or in a sketch book when I was growing up, which in my opinion, kind of matched where I was in my own life a little perfectly. It was careful and reserved. So was I. I would be too afraid to push down on the pencil too hard and make my marks too dark, so everything I drew had little to no contrast. I was so afraid of messing up and not being able to erase. A little later I would start using ink pens on sketch paper, doing silhouette-type pieces. This was easier because I could sketch out an outline in pencil, make sure that looked perfect, and then fill in from there. When I was in college as an art major, I discovered paint! I knew it existed, but I finally learned how to use it and that I was good at working with it. I continued with my silhouette work, but with acrylics, and that was the same kind of process as ink pens: sketching it out, filling it in, boom. The silhouette method was working very well for me, however I always made it harder than it needed to be. I never used stencils. I didn’t believe in them, so I always freehanded the outlines, which gave me a real sense of accomplishment, but it also made what could have been 1 hour-long projects take multiple hours to complete.

Then, I purchased my first iPad/Apple Pencil combo. I also purchased the app, Procreate. Using these new tools, opened up my world in a way I’d never imagined (Procreate, sponsor me, maybe?). For the first time, I was drawing people in color! I was doing full-fledged, 20 hour portraits that were perfect down to the freckles and the stray hairs. Focusing on the colors was a whole new ball game for me, and thanks to my art classes, I knew that I was very good at color theory, so I was able to recreate everything from the golden highlights in hair, to the blue undertones in skin almost effortlessly, and I was overjoyed at how my portraits had evolved.

Now, as an artist, I still like to make “perfect recreation” portraits, but I’ve moved toward a newer, more freeing kind of style that’s all my own. I’m more impulsive with my line work and more eccentric with my color choices, and while I like the lengthiness and the challenge of a “perfect recreation” project, (and the fact that it comes with a pre-determined end point) getting to make my own creative choices and seeing what I end up with, having my finished piece be a surprise, even to me, is just so cool.

I don’t know what kind of work I'll be making 10 years from now, or even 10 days from now. I do know, however, that whatever medium I’m working with, and whatever my style is at the time, I will be drawing Geena Davis. I’ve just come to terms with the fact that this crush will never fade as long as I am the living, breathing lesbian that I am. And as long as I am making art, Geena Davis will be my forever muse.

Okay, everyone go watch a Geena Davis movie, right now. I highly recommend any one of them. Yeah, I bet you didn’t think that reading this post would come with a homework assignment. Wild.