I met this lovely young girl in the late 1990’s while I was living in Campo de Ourique neighborhood of Lisbon. At the time Portugal was going through one of the worst drug epidemics in the western world. 

“In 1999, use of heroin, cocaine and other hard drugs was rampant. Approximately 100,000 Portuguese, or one per cent of the population, reported an addiction to hard drugs.” https://www.cbc.ca/news2/interactives/portugal-heroin-decriminalization/ 

Campo de Ourique is an upscale neighborhood of Lisbon, but it was just a few blocks away from one of the worst neighborhoods for crime drug use in the city at the time. I was working with one of the oldest protestant churches in the country (both in the age of the church and the age of its members). We were trying to reach out of the drug addicts and the community that was being devastated by this epidemic.

This young girl was the most vibrant energetic lively young girl you could imagine, but her father was a heroin addict. Her mother was a good mother, loving and sensitive, and she was trying her best to make a go of it, but it was very challenging. For someone like me who had such a sheltered life in comparison, the whole experience was quite an education in the real world of social entrepreneurship.

I felt compelled to paint her, I think it was her story, or the sadness or wisdom in her young eyes. My initial sketches were very discouraging as she just looked older and boring, so I decided to just give up and have fun. I threw together a quick sketch that I loved and that was the basis of the painting. With the tiles in the background. Initially I just wanted to fill the space with something interesting rather than a boring background like in many portraits. As I put the tails in, I thought I would have fun with them and curve them around the subject rather than put them behind her.

Regarding the spoon on the table in front of her. It just felt to me like something needed to be in that space. That was a typical cafe spoon, the kind you don’t have in America because our coffee is served in paper cups with wooden or plastic stirrers, since everything else in the painting was Alice in Wonderland it felt like the spoon should also be curved. It was only when a recovering drug addict looked at the painting and said, “Oh you put the spoon in there because of her father’s heroin addiction.” I was so naive I didn’t even know that heroin was cooked in spoons before it was injected.

I think this is one of my most mature paintings. I see her resilient spirit, that could live so vivaciously despite the overwhelming odds. I would love to meet her today as I imagine she is a powerful and successful woman who has overcome all the challenges of her upbringing.