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Madelaine Enochs-Epley
Lexington, KY - Last fall, Lexington artist and yoga teacher Madelaine Enochs-Epley found herself in a place where her life was on the verge of becoming frenetic. A hairdresser by trade, she had also taken on a job with the University of Kentucky STEPS program, working in the kidney and liver transplant center. The two jobs had become a lot to handle –– she was constantly exhausted and unable to spend the quality time with her family that she wanted.
“One of my friends said, ‘You know, you’re killing yourself,’” she recalled. “I went home that night and I thought, ‘You know, she’s right.’”
The next day, Enochs-Epley quit the position at UK; it was a transitional period and a good time to leave. That morning, as she tried to figure out how to spend her day, an idea was born.
“I was having my morning coffee and looking at Facebook, and I thought, ‘Well, I could paint somebody while I’m trying to figure out what to do with my life,’” she said. “So I asked, ‘Would anyone like to sit for an hour? I’ll paint you and give you a cup of coffee and we can talk.’
“I asked twice, and then I never asked again,” she said.
She didn’t have to ask again –– fast forward six months, and Enochs-Epley is nearing 200 portraits of friends, friends of friends and complete strangers. The concept has snowballed into a full-fledged community project, with Enochs-Epley spending a couple of hours most days on the project, not only painting but juggling the constant flux of e-mails and Facebook messages of community members who want to be painted. She aims to complete 500 paintings by the summer.
“The more I paint faces, the more I love to paint faces,” she said. “It gets into your blood.”
Enochs-Epley said she has always been attracted to the human face, ever since her grandmother gave her an old camera when she was 16.
“I just started shooting and developing –– it was always the face,” she said.
The concept for 500 portraits blossomed when Enochs-Epley applied for funding through the online crowdsourcing platform Kickstarter after just painting a handful of portraits. While she didn’t end up getting the funding, she credits that application process with putting the project into gear.
“The application was so easy that I just made up my idea, Johnny on the spot,” she said. “I didn’t get the money, but it’s OK. It really did kickstart me. It did what it said it was going to do.”
The sittings are free, and Enochs-Epley sells the paintings for $85 each. More and more folks are buying their paintings, but money is not the raison d’être for the artist.“I’m happier than I’ve ever been with anything I’ve ever done. I’m having a blast,” Enochs-Epley said. “This is the first time I know who I am as an artist. In the past I always had to question.”
The project is a moving example of the power of social media, with Enochs-Epley connecting with nearly all of her subjects through Facebook. She sees it as an extension of the connectedness of a community, and hopes to take that connectedness to another level at the end of the project, by leading a huge community yoga session –– ideally, with as many of her 500 subjects in attendance as possible.
“I’m so glad I tied the yoga in with the original project, because it’s a passion to help people discover their own connectedness and their connectedness to each other,” she said.
While she paints people from all walks of life, the portraits loosely follow the same formula: Enochs-Epley provides the coffee, and a one-hour sand timer is turned over at the beginning of the session. When the hour is up, Enochs-Epley stops painting, but the subject won’t see the finished product until she posts it on Facebook, usually later that day. She said she likes to step away from the painting for a bit, then come back to it before signing it.
Though it’s easy to see the project as a gift from Enochs-Epley to the community, she sees it as something more than that.
“It’s a total gift to me. Every time someone comes, I’m like, ‘Really? Thank you,’” she said. “I have total gratitude.”
A selection of Enochs-Epley’s portraits are on display at the Good Foods Co-Op, as well as at UK Neuroscience Center and the LFUCG employee wellness center. Enochs-Epley takes portrait requests via Facebook, and while she can’t promise that she will be able to get to everyone who messages her, she encourages interested parties to reach out.