In their frankness her eyes disconcert me. She projects a feline look — bold, provocative; her lips curl toward a snarl and her teeth show just slightly — maybe in anger. She is a spectator on a sidewalk waiting for a parade to commence. To honor Saint Patrick, our lady has turned out in purple highlights and matching eye-shadow, her neck and shoulders glitzed-up with neon jade-green and gossamer-white. She wears what looks like an antique coat — in navy blue with padded shoulders. We have no biographical indications, except to observe she is probably not married. She has fashioned her persona free-form, without inhibition; witness her almost-diabolically inventive use of pigments to adorn herself.

What about those colors? Green makes sense — it’s an Irish holiday. The purple seems to belong in another zone entirely. The recognized significations of that color do not exactly align with the occasion: Nobility, Power and Royalty. But there are also Magic, Spiritual Power, Mystery, Extravagance and Ambition implied by the royal color, some of which might apply to Ireland. Then we have Stimulation, Calmness and Tranquility. Perhaps these last account for the remarkable self-possession the woman reveals in our impromptu portrait.

Her masterstroke is the orange lipstick. Outlining her mouth that way seems to me an incitement. Anthropologists agree: She has drawn a convincing analogy to swollen female genitals.

Photographed by the author on Main Street in Lexington, Kentucky