Alternating between washes of color, black outlines, and selective detail – all in chalk pastel – Felicity Don’s portraits have an elusive presence: real space seems to materialize around the faces of her sitters, who emerge between the looser marks and washes that define the rest of the page.

As a courtroom artist, Don can catch a fugitive look from the myriad faces of the BC court system in a quick gesture of marker and pencil. Outside the courts, she does free public art classes at the Carnegie Center, and portraiture sessions where she sketches the vibrant street life of the Downtown Eastside.

One of the most remarkable aspect of her work is the way her sitters confidently pose. She chooses her models based on their interesting appearances, but the energy that exudes from many of her portraits imply that the models are actually challenging us to see something in them, rather than waiting to have something drawn out of their image.

After featuring Don in our Winter 2008 issue, ocw caught up with her to ask a few questions.

Q: Your work is mainly divided between courtroom pieces and portraiture of residents of the DTES. What are your feelings about the relationship between these two practices?

A: They’re complimentary. In both cases I use skills of artistic discipline for capturing fleeting moments and facial expressions.

Q: You’ve mentioned that you depict DTES residents because of their visual interest. What are your opinions on representing those that many treat as invisible?

A: I can see them as they were as babies – as vulnerable, as optimistic in early life. It is amazing how many of them talk about their mothers while I draw them.

They are side swiped by experimentation with drugs, by pimps preying on them, by being given a lousy hand of cards to deal with in life, by inherited tendencies to addiction, by stupid choices any of us might conceivably make, by being abused as kids by people in positions of trust, by fetal alcohol syndrome, by political agendas that leave the mentally ill out in the streets rather than being cared for in homes and institutions and on and on. It is not only those born to poor families who live hard lives in the Downtown Eastside. People have tumbled from well off families into the streets.

There is a rawness in their expressions as a result of their extreme battle to survive. I feel for them, for us, for humanity. There is a fine line between being perceived by the public as a voyeur from a different strata of society, as opposed to being an artist who has empathy for her models. I suppose I am a voyeur in that I am not a part of their current lifestyle, but am compelled to use their images for my drawings.

I do not draw them because of my compassion for their situation, but because it feeds my visual appetite. It just so happens that at the same time I do understand and care. It is a bit of a minefield. I have been called exploitative and no doubt it will occur again. There’s nothing I can do about that limited and mean-spirited view.

Q: In your capacity as a courtroom artist, is there an expectation of a certain sense of “objectivity” comparable to what television cameras would capture? What are your feelings about gesture?

A: There is definitely an expectation of objectivity regarding innocence or guilt of the accused. However, the media enjoys, if not exploits, any emotional content that occurs during court proceedings and I very much enjoy capturing the drama through gesture and facial expression.

Q: Anything else you would like readers to know?

A: It is not only those from the Downtown Eastside that interest me, but any class of human who presents him/herself in a particular way. It is something intangible and difficult for me to explain.

Not long ago I spent a month in Turkey. While there I was itching to draw a certain group of fundamentalist women who pin long veils under their noses, prominent noses appearing like beaks. They had watchful, darting, bird-like eyes and flowing robes that were ironically reminiscent of wings. Ordinary people in the Turkish buses intrigued me too – the slant of a neck, the limp hand of a sleeping woman lying against her man.

I just happen to have gone down the Downtown Eastside path because in this city the visually fascinating are there – right here, in my face, all around me. Who wants to draw people in Gortex, plugged into Sony Walkmans, etc? Not this artist.