Today I did something new: I asked my daughter, Stellamaris, to sit for a portrait.

It was a modest, quick little thing. A pencil sketch. It’s not like I haven’t made plenty of portraits of her—of all my kids. Many hours my pencil has chased my little ones while they play, dashed off sleeping baby portraits, and copied their precious features from photos. But this was the first time I’ve asked my child to sit for me. It’s the first time my child has been mature enough to understand—and to oblige me.

And Stellamaris is cut out for it. Not only is she stunningly beautiful, she is quite the ‘Prima Donna,’ as some of us know. She was clearly flattered at the suggestion. She took to the nearest chair, grew quiet, and her intense features settled into a pensive mask as I went to work. 

My heart swelled as I took up the old familiar attitude of a portraitist. This can only be fully realized, for me, in the quiet, performative tight-rope walk of drawing a person from life. This is a practice I began when I was a child myself. It has become a kind of sacred rite for me. 

Once the agreement is made and the ritual begins, the space between the artist and model suddenly becomes electric. A controlled ecstasy of observation envelopes my brain and my body falls away. Everything delightfully falls away except the roaring gaze of the subject, and whisper of materials. 

I saw my daughter for the first time then. What a wonder. It was the first time I had really seen her in the special way that I begin to see things when I draw them. That is, with a rapt appreciation of the form; an almost mystical disappearing into the subject. Somehow, the subject grows bigger and so do I. The subject becomes the world for a few moments. And me? I become the surveyor of that world. 

And in this vision I saw the fully sentient Stellamaris. Not just a baby—which, though a lovely thing to draw, is still so undifferentiated as to be more like a type—even like a still life; a gorgeous flowering plant set a landscape of drapery and blankets. But no. This almost-six-year-old Stella of mine was her own person this time. A model. A ‘sitter’—with a mind and an opinion as to what you are doing. A judge being judged; an observer being observed. This was a free soul offering herself willingly to my gaze.

It was hard work to keep reminding myself that she is only five. I had to force my pencil to retrace her proportions to adequately reflect her age. And I’m not sure I fully succeeded. I keep seeing the fully bloomed, future Stellamaris there, unfolding like a timeless rose.

What a gift to give birth to a person. But then, to love a person so much, and then to have the privilege of seeing this person in this special way—in the artist way of seeing that I have applied to only a few people in my entire life? It brought tears to my eyes. 

Drawing Stellamaris was both new and familiar. It reminded me of drawing her father. So much like that. But more, because she came from me. It was like looking into a strange mirror, an alternate universe where the familiar terrain of my own face has blended with that of her father’s; a logical, yet confounding mystery of love.

I hope this is just the beginning. Stella was the most patient she’s ever been—about anything. And since she is the sort of kid who is always trying to get someone’s eyes on her—especially her mother’s eyes—well, I think we’ve found a way to collaborate that pleases us both. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a model.

But now it’s time for bed and soon this light little sketch will be overwrought.

“Can we do more of this another time, Stel?”

“Yes, mama. It looks pretty. I want you to paint me next time.”

Here we go.

It isn’t that this is the best portrait I’ve ever done. It’s far from that. In fact, as I look at the sketch, it’s frustratingly far from what I see in her—far even from what I know I can do. I’ve painted mother’s sons before, and found it challenging to please the mother. But now I’m in the same position and I’m not sure it would be possible to please myself. There is a universe of worlds within my child; depths of knowing that can’t be understood through one image—even when I myself have conceived it.

Will this be heaven? To know and to know and to know the Beloved? To survey worlds within worlds, forever?