Self Portrait

Selfie

   oil on linen panel  

 5" x 7"

"The seasons have changed

And the light

And the weather

And the hour

But it is the same land

And I begin to know the map

And to get my bearings."

Dag Hammarskjold

Painting a self portrait forces one to come to grips with the passage of time. There are days I can't move around very well, my sight is not good, my hearing about gone. It can be a bit troublesome to consider all that has gone before in one's life and the price paid - but the task of art is to provide a kind of intuition about hope and understanding - to look forward. In this way the face in the mirror is simplified to just another visual problem to be solved. The offered section of a poem found in Dag Hammarskjold's papers, written by him as he traveled as Secretary-General of the United Nations. I thought it spoke to an awareness of the artist's constant task, to try and 'get one's bearings' through the passing seasons and light and weather and the hour - and find a way  toward some small moment of clarity.