PORTRAITS

In my early days I used to draw friends and people all the time. I always had the ability somehow to put my finger on the essence or character of that person.

I used to for many years do a self portrait on my birthday. On the subject of self portraits, if truth be told, I once did the high school art class assignment of a self portrait for my best friend at the time. Maybe that was my first foray into the essence of compassion, I am you, you are me, we are all one.

Some portrait sessions, as in “Portrait of a Photographer” (3.), had my sitter rather surprised as well myself to find an explosive abstraction more aptly portraying that person. For years while making mechanical sculptures, I used that sculptural language for the portrait of Chuck Close (15.) I have told Chuck about this sculpture though he has not ever seen it, he never seems amused.

But in all my years of drawing people, it was only recently that I had a rather unusual experience. Someone had altered one of my sketches of them. They had added detailed eyelashes, more hair and some outlines, believing it made their lips more pronounced. When they showed it to me, it was in a manner of ...” Wasn’t it much better now?”. In the art world, such an act would be considered sac-religious and unheard of. Here it was done with such innocence and genuineness, I could only think, “... if it made them happier.....