Soul Portrait
Some moments change the course of a life. Others change the way we see ourselves. I turn those moments — the milestones, the quiet revelations, the dance of your inner world — into a work of art you can return to, long after the details have begun to fade.
And sometimes, an image has a story of its own to tell. Your Soul Portrait can become part of an illustrated short story, too.
How does a Soul Portrait come to life?
1
First, we talk. We look at pictures, follow memories, and give the story time to unfold. Little by little, I begin to see what is moving within you. This is your story, after all, and you are at its heart. Whatever you share — memories, feelings, even the things that are difficult to put into words — I treat with care and discretion. It stays between us.
2
I usually work in watercolour or pen and ink, though other approaches are possible. I am not here to copy a photograph. I want to understand what lies beyond it: the people, the places, the small objects that carry a whole world of meaning. From these details, something entirely your own begins to take shape.
3
From the first sketch to the finished image, there are several opportunities to discuss and refine the work. You remain part of the journey, and we keep the destination in sight together.
4
If you wish, my creative partner Firkatica can give words to the story behind your image. A moment that matters to you can then live on as an illustrated short story.
Images that feel true to you
Perhaps you already sense something familiar in the pictures on this page.
If it is not, you are free to step away without obligation. If it is, we keep talking and looking until the missing pieces find their places. My promise is not that I can read your mind. It is that I will listen closely enough to make something that feels true to you.
A few stories the camera can tell
A Personal Reflection from the Artist
The Flying Dutchman
I am trying to find my way. I have built a small business around work I genuinely love, and yet there is a strange imbalance: the energy I put into it, the relationships I have nurtured and the things I have learned do not seem to match what comes back. My idea of success is modest enough. A kind word, a thoughtful response, a commission — each one matters to me.
At times I feel as though I am floating in a bubble somewhere in the universe. The rest of the world seems to be travelling in another orbit, and I keep trying to explain, across all that distance, what I have to give.
Because I do want to give something. I believe the things I make have value: not only a price, but a kind of nourishment for the heart and mind. For now, however, that belief has not translated into a living. My creative work does not yet cover its own costs, let alone replace my day job.
And all around me there is noise. People seem able to sell things I value less, simply by speaking about them louder and more often. We have not had a television for some fifteen years, which has spared us at least part of the chorus. But the clutter of a world forever trying to sell something is difficult to escape.
I know how the economy works. I simply wish there were room in it to make a living without losing the good feeling that made me begin.
I have not yet found the answer — or the way to keep my creations from gathering dust behind the cot.
Short Story Inspired by This Soul Portrait
The Glass Slipper
- “Oh, no. You cannot be serious!” Bori muttered at the sight of Zsófi’s shoe.
She had bought it barely two days earlier, and already the buckle was gone. It had not been cheap. Nor had it been her first choice. But Zsófi had fallen in love with the little butterfly on the strap and pleaded until there was no talking her out of it. And now the butterfly had vanished. She would not even be able to sell the shoes on.
- Zsófi! Where are you?” Bori called, stepping into the room. “What happened to your shoe?”
The little girl looked up from her picture book. She did not answer. Her mouth began to turn down at the corners, and her lower lip trembled.
- "What happened to your shoe?” Bori asked again, a little more gently. She moved towards her daughter and was about to kneel when she stopped. Her own words seemed to reach her from a great distance, as though they had travelled around the Earth, past the stars, and back through the years in a voice she knew by heart. Her mother’s voice.
- "What happened to your shoe?"
She had been about Zsófi’s age when her parents brought her a pair of wonderful shoes from abroad. They were only clear rubber, sprinkled with tiny flecks of glitter. But to Bori they had been glass slippers from a fairy tale. She never wanted to take them off.
She set them carefully beside her bed that night. The next day she wore them for a walk by the Danube.
One careless step, and a shoe sank into the river mud. She searched and searched, but it was gone. When her mother saw her coming back with one bare foot, she was furious.
- “What happened to your shoe?” she shouted. Little Bori could not answer.
She wanted to cry — for the lovely shoe, for the fairy she had felt herself to be, for all that glittering happiness now lost in the mud.
Most of all, she wanted someone to hold her. Instead, the hands she hoped would comfort her waved angrily before her face. She swallowed her tears, unable to speak.
- “Is it because of the butterfly?” Zsófi’s small voice asked.
Bori came back to the room. She nodded. Her daughter’s lip was still trembling.
- “Do you remember what I told you when we bought the shoes?” she asked at last, her voice rough.
- “You said I must look after them. Because they have fairy butterflies on them, and the butterflies help us find our way home.”
Bori smiled. She had forgotten saying that. She gathered Zsófi into her lap, stroked her hair, and asked, “And you lost one?”
"And you lost one anyway?"
- “I didn’t lose it, Mummy! I took one off and put it on your shoe. So you can always find your way home, too. One butterfly is enough for me, isn’t it?” Her face held both pride and a little fear.
Bori held the shoe.
A warm, invisible breeze seemed to pass through her, and tears spilled down her cheeks.
- “I’m sorry, Mummy! Look, we can put it back. I didn’t mean to do anything bad!” Zsófi cried, frightened now.
- “I’m not angry, darling.” Bori wiped her eyes and smiled. “These are happy tears. Because at last I have found the glass slipper I lost so long ago.”
Story by Firkatica my creative partner
Short Story Inspired by This Soul Portrait
Andi and the Old Tree
Andi ran laughing across the meadow. The grass tickled her bare ankles, and the sun warmed her face. She had been dancing among the flowers for so long that her frilled skirt had hardly stopped spinning. At last she grew hot and went to rest beneath the trees, where she lay looking at scraps of blue sky between the branches.
Then she spotted a wild pear hanging above her. “Just the thing for a little snack!” she thought. Up she climbed. She was a nimble girl, and soon the fruit was in her hand.
At that very moment an old woman appeared from nowhere.
“How dare you pick my last magic pear!” she thundered.
The shout startled Andi so badly that she fell from the branch. The pear rolled away through the grass.
This did nothing to improve the old woman’s temper. Her face turned nearly purple.
Andi tried to explain. She had only been hungry. She had not known the pear was special.
“Please don’t be angry,” she whispered.
At length the woman grew quiet.
“See that caterpillar in the leaves? That is what I ought to turn you into. But I shall give you a chance. Find the oldest tree in the forest. If it forgives you, so shall I. You have until sunset.”
Andi was frightened enough to run at once. Deep into the forest she went, until she reached a tree so enormous that its branches gave shade to several smaller trees.
“Surely this must be the oldest,” she thought.
“Dear Oldest Tree,” she said, “I am sorry I picked the last pear from the other tree. What can I do to make things right?”
The tree said nothing. Andi thought hard. Her little brother could not speak yet either, but whenever they quarrelled, a hug always helped.
Perhaps a hug would help here, too.
She pressed herself against the trunk and tried to put her arms around it.
The tree was far too wide.
Still she stayed, her cheek against the rough bark, holding on as best she could. Her tears slipped down to its roots.
The sun disappeared behind the hills. Soon the old woman came looking for her. Andi hid among the twisted roots, in the soft moss and fallen leaves.
Through a gap she could see the woman’s worn shoes. She heard her whisper to the tree, though she could not make out the words.
Then something wonderful happened. Slowly, gently, the roots curled around Andi. They did not trap her.
They held her as a pair of kind arms might. Safe at last, she fell asleep.
Morning came. Andi woke and climbed out from her shelter.
She was still a girl, not a caterpillar! She spun once in her frilled skirt, then hugged the tree again — this time with a smile instead of tears.
"Thank you, dear Oldest Tree,” she said, stroking its bark. And off she ran, laughing, towards home.
Story by Firkatica my creative partner
Short Story Inspired by This Soul Portrait
The Beauty
I remember that little girl so clearly.
She could see herself in the bathroom mirror only by climbing onto a purple plastic stool shaped like an hourglass. The stool was unsteady and not particularly loyal: it had thrown her off more than once.
Still, she climbed, holding tight to the washbasin, which seemed to have a kinder nature than the stool.
The mirror was ordinary, its silver backing worn. But the mirror was never the point. The reflection was. A radiant little girl looked back at her: pale skin, a nose full of freckles, two light-brown plaits that were untidy at every hour of the day, and eyes as blue as forget-me-nots, bright with mischief. Her cheeks were rosy, and her cherry-red mouth curved into a smile.
She leaned closer. Pursed her lips. Smiled. Pulled faces. Tried to frown, only to find her freckles dancing where the wrinkles ought to be. Then the stool lost patience. Down she went, banging her chin, tearing her blouse and sending a button beneath the washing machine.
She quietly put the stool back and escaped the bathroom.
There were other mirrors. One hung on a burgundy coat stand, usually buried behind the coats of a very large family and their many visitors. To see herself, she had to push the coats aside and keep them from falling back. No wonder she disliked that mirror: it showed the effort on her face.
Her little school mirror was easier to reach, but showed only a fragment of her face. Held farther away, it distorted everything — or slipped and broke, or was borrowed by a sister. The grandest mirrors were at the town theatre, where the family went to concerts. Facing one another, they held an endless line of reflections. Well, half of them faced her; every second one showed her back. In those mirrors, even the whole family could have fitted.
I remember the growing girl who looked with alarm at her long limbs and awkward movements. The face in the mirror had a square jaw, strong eyebrows, blue eyes and freckles.
There was also the sore on her nose, picked open again whenever she was bored, tired or upset. It seemed to stare back at her with a reproach of its own.
Her younger sister was prettier, she thought, and moved more gracefully. Her father said so. Her brother said so. The boys who admired her sister seemed to agree. Perhaps she was living the ugly duckling story backwards: a pretty child becoming a plain young woman.
I remember the teenager who had survived measles and stared at the red surrounding her blue eyes. The doctors called it a haemorrhage at the back of the eye. It was not the only complication, merely the one the mirror could show. Her eyes looked like pale-blue marbles resting on red velvet. “At least you survived,” people told her. “You are lucky.” She might lose her sight, but she was alive.
I remember the student walking back to her college residence after returning her engagement ring. The young man had offered to marry her, have children with her — and, he announced, certainly be unfaithful. He had been disappointed in her, but would do his duty. Who else would want a woman who had once been engaged? The mark of shame, it seemed, had four letters in Hungarian and one simple meaning: she was a virgin, and intended to remain so until marriage.
She looked into the slightly warped mirror in her room. There I am, she thought. Plain enough, especially after crying. But the broken engagement lifted a weight from her shoulders. By the next day she felt beautiful again. Light enough to walk among clouds.
I remember the young woman surprised by how many men wanted to walk her home. In the mirror she saw unruly hair and teeth that had been straightened a little unevenly. Nothing remarkable. Yet nothing seemed especially wrong, either. A beautician once told her how fortunate she was: her skin was clear, and her features so well balanced that stage make-up needed only to bring them out. She had never thought of that as luck.
And when she looked in the mirror, she saw that her features hadn't been altered at all.
The delicate, natural-looking make-up had simply made her face appear a little fresher.
She gazed at her reflection with delight, almost wanting to cheer.
But men’s attention troubled her. Their looks lingered. Their words followed. She felt exposed, as though there were something shameful about her body, about being a woman.
She learned to keep her distance, to choose her words carefully, to look away first. Perhaps, if she did not meet their eyes, they would not notice her.
......
But that passed.
She came to understand that her body was the place she lived — a home she could make comfortable, a treasure she did not have to hide. What mattered most about her could not be spoiled by a passing glance.
It was within.
Now she often smiles when people look. Let them look. She, too, enjoys the sight of beautiful people and things.
She no longer tries to vanish on the street.
Her smile sometimes puzzles strangers: Do I know her? Is she trying to meet me?
No. She is simply glad to be alive.
She sees the grey hairs now, the wrinkles, the roses fading from her cheeks.
Yet when she looks into the mirror, she can still glimpse the two untidy plaits, the sparkling blue eyes and the small face that once delighted her. The girl is still there, just before the purple stool decides, once again, that enough is enough.
Story by Hamar Éva my creative partner
Mother’s Letter to Babó
Dear Babó,
I want to tell you something I have learned about the pure, unguarded trust of a newborn child.
No mother goes into childbirth wearing a full suit of armour. In the months of waiting, we are given time to lay down some of our worries and the masks we wear for the world. We begin, perhaps, to speak more honestly with ourselves. Carrying another life brings us into moments when we can lower our shields. By the time we enter the delivery room, we have little left to hide behind — in body or in spirit.
And then, during birth, the rest of the world falls away. The old burdens, the worries, friends and enemies: none of them can come with us into that moment. One person, then one and a half, then two. One task. Two souls, open to the world.
When you were born, they laid you on my chest, still covered in the creamy traces of your first home. I could scarcely see you beneath them, and later beneath the blanket. I doubt you could see much either. You had just made a difficult journey. But against my chest, you grew calm.
Two weeks later, I still see that same trusting helplessness. You do not pull away from a touch. Even when the milk you want is only a little distance away, you cannot reach it by yourself. When a large hand warms your cold little fingers and then moves away, you do not reach after it. For everything — everything — you depend on me and on the people around you.
You look around with wide-open eyes, eyes that seem large enough to hold an entire world.
Just as you yourself hold the Future within you.
It is a frightening amount of power to hold over another life. And an immense responsibility. You have so little protection of your own; so much of your first understanding of the world will come through us. You look about with wide-open eyes. An entire world seems to fit inside them. And inside you lies the future. You do not yet dream of becoming an astronaut, an artist of living, or anything else. But all those possibilities are yours. Time, energy and love stretch ahead of you. My task is to listen for the person you are becoming, even before you have words for it, and help you grow towards that life. Every child carries something wonderful. It is our responsibility as parents to help it unfold.
Thank you, once again, for letting me share your life, and for all you have already taught me. There is so much more to tell, but I shall save it for another chapter.
Good night, my little one. Sweet dreams.
All my love,
Mummy
Behind the Painting
A friend asked me to paint this picture. I knew a little of her story already, and even that little was quite an adventure.
When she was young, her whole family moved to America. She alone stayed behind, because she was in love. In time, the love faded, but the place she called home remained.
Later she met the person who would become her great love. Life kept them apart for half a lifetime; now they cannot imagine spending the little time they have left — a mere few decades! — without each other. Their family grew into a wonderful patchwork: two children from one side, three from the other, and three more together.
And, in the end, they really did go to America. When I look at them now, I see a life arriving at the place it had been trying to reach all along. A little late, perhaps. But beautifully so.
Take the first step
I will ask you for photographs, memories and whatever else may help me understand the image you have in mind.
Our first conversation is free, and carries no obligation. It is a chance for you to decide whether you would like us to work together. Afterwards, we can talk by email, phone or in person, whichever suits you.
I will prepare an individual quote based on your story and the work involved. As the picture takes shape, I will keep you informed. When it is ready, you can collect it in person or receive it by post.
Write to andi@langandi.hu, or use the form below. Tell me, in a few words, what kind of images you dream of—and, if you wish, why they matter to you.
Tell me, in a few words, what you would love to see brought to life.