Some thoughts on Michelle's portrait

Apparently a lot of people don't like the Michelle Obama portrait. They say it seems flattened, that it doesn't reflect her vibrancy, that it looks more like her younger daughter Sasha than it looks like her. They argue with the proportion of her arm, the grey tones of her skin, and other choices that the commissioned artist Amy Sherald made. I confess when I first saw the painting on my TV screen, I, too, was underwhelmed, though I immediately loved the flow of her garment, and its subtle sartorial nod to the quilts once hung on Southern clotheslines as secret messages to guide blacks fleeing slavery via the Underground Railroad.

I was in my kitchen making coffee with the TV on when I looked up and there were Barack and Michelle, such a welcome sight, lightly humorous and warm as they introduced the artists they'd chosen to immortalize them in the National Portrait Gallery. My husband was home from work for Lincoln's birthday—it's only now occurred to me that they chose this date to unveil the paintings. When I saw the black cloth fall from Michelle's portrait, I said, "Doesn't look like her." Then the camera zoomed in on her face. "Okay, I see her now," I said.

The more I looked at the painting, the more I began to appreciate it for itself, one artist's vision, and then to love it. Michelle is obviously very happy with it, and that counts with me. She very clearly enjoyed the collaboration with the artist, and her signature painting style. Sherald apparently paints skin in shades of gray as a rejection of the idea of race as a social construct. After interviewing several artists, this is who the First Lady chose to commemorate her time in office. And I'm okay with that. Most of all, I love that she introduced America to an artist we might otherwise never know, a woman who is extraordinarily talented and deeply passionate. Here are some of her other pieces. I love them, too.