Photo courtesy of Reader's Digest
Junior Bonnie Belew was asked to model for the February 2004
back cover of Reader’s Digest.
You know you've seen that face before.
Pull that February 2004 edition of Reader's Digest from the bathroom rack and look at the back cover painting again. Yes. The expression and the blond hair are definitely familiar.
Not many people can proudly produce a copy of a popular magazine and point out their own image as the subject of a painting. But Hillsdale College junior Bonnie Belew can.
Working at a bakery near her home in Cincinnati, Belew was asked to pose for a painting by one of the bakery's regular customers, Chris Payne.
Payne recognized that “the girl behind the counter” fit the image for his illustration on one of his visits to the bakery located in a suburb of Cincinnati. The “50-something-year old” appropriately contacted her parents and explained the idea to them before photographing Belew for the painting.
“When you create these pictures, you track someone down who you can use as a model,” Payne said.
The artist said he prefers to use acquaintances and friends for his paintings.
Payne, whose children went to school with Belew, has been hired by Reader's Digest on a second two-year contract with the magazine to provide monthly paintings for their famous back covers. His satirical paintings suggest the irony that Americans face in their daily experiences, such as this painting, entitled “Table for Two.”
Belew and her co-worker sat in a local restaurant with their cell phones handy while Payne posed the “date scene” with one of his neighbors filling in as the annoyed waiter. Payne photographed the scene and painted from the pictures.
“We were supposed to be on a date,” Belew said. “[But] we were more interested in our phone conversations than each other.”
The staff at Reader's Digest came up with the title of the painting, but Payne's wife said they got it wrong because it should be titled “Table for Four.”
Payne used what he described as a “mixed media technique” to paint the illustration, which includes acrylics and water color.
Although the painting was done nearly two years ago, the irony of the busy, communication-driven lives of Americans still rings true today.
Payne's works portray a “view of contemporary American culture and what is unique about it,” he said. “We're not trying to re-illustrate Norman Rockwell, [but] to take a look at today's culture through our own eyes.”