The image I chose is a portrait by Chris Rush. I tried to find some information on him before doing my close reading, but I found it exceedingly difficult to find much of anything about him. Even his website has no information about the artist. I did find information about a Christopher Rush who is an artist for Magic cards, but I don't think it's him, and if it is, I'm having a hard time understanding why there's plenty of information on his illustrations for a game and very little about his portraits on disability.

I was drawn to Beverly McIver's portrait of her sister, Renee. She demonstrates how much she cares for her sister in the attention to detail and expression she conveys. McIver seems to have used oil paint in this portrait, which has allowed her to layer color on top of color -- the main appeal of the portrait.

World War I was one of the most horrifying wars the world has ever seen--trench warfare has been described as hellish muck, among other things. Unfortunately, one of the surprisingly common outcomes of trench warfare was injury to the face.  A soldier would stick their head out of the trench, and lo--a shell explodes, and your face is gone, if you're lucky enough to survive. Those men that did survive were horribly disfigured. To help the healing process, many armies sponsored artists to create "portrait masks" for the afflicted veterans, a form of facial prosthetic, so they could regain some sense of a normal life. 

In my search for a portrait featuring a visibly disabled subject, I came across this painting, by the artist Paul Fiore. I was particularly interested in this piece because it appears on Fiore’s blog with little information, other than the title “Amputee” and an explanation that he has not yet completed it. I hoped that a close reading of an unfinished product (particularly one painted by a man who, as far as I can tell from my research, does not have a visible disability) might give me some clues as to how Fiore intends to continue work on his painting.

One of the things that I really learned from my placement at an up and coming alternative high school in north Philadelphia was the idea of how access to education is something far deeper than just the question of the kinds of resources a student may or may not have. I worked one-on-one with a student for the majority of my time there and one of the assignments was to write a letter to a faculty member introducing yourself, describing aspects of your life, along with listing things such as goals and aspirations for the upcoming year.

Access to education can come from various places and have various angles, and for my sister, her angle was running. She was athletic for as long as I can remember, but it wasn’t until high school that she truly realized her potential as an athlete, and its implications in terms of applying to college. Now as the fall starts to roll around and my sister begins her college application process, I can help but reminisce and compare our experiences. So much of my access to education has been involved with my cerebral nature and channeling that into being the best student possible, whereas my sister is flourishing as a result of her talent as a star track athlete. In this instance, her access to education has nothing to do with education at all.