Bits and pieces

Here are some failed attempts during the struggle this month.  However, certain aspects of these may be used later...

This is a tattooed portrait on rawhide,
it also can be viewed from both sides

Although this is a NOPE. 

NOPE, total fail. embarrassing 

Some other work from this month

These are still spit-shadied pieces cut out and put on a board that is papered with targets I shot at the shooting range with a Glock 30, 45 cal.  I also then painted on top of the target.

'Heads Will Roll'

'triggerwarning'

Real women have learning curves

This month brought about many realizations, and much struggle.  Normally when I approach a painting I will map it out in my sketchbook in ideas, quotes, scribbles, sketches etc to form the overall theme. This month I started that way again, but have talked my way out of about 10-15 ideas.

During this time researching contemporary expressionists like:

DANA SCHUTZ

NICOLE EISENMAN

I've always been drawn to painterly painters, their concentration on form and style as well as content appeals to how I want to work.  My work so far has been doing this somewhat but not in a painterly way as I have been constructing pieces together using collage and strange material like casing and tattooed rawhide. 

I appreciate the experimentation and it has yielded some interesting result but I feel like I need to focus on compositions and consider formal aspects in an overall piece.  

The spit-shade technique, which I still want to use, will only work on hot press watercolor paper, there is no doing this on the unconventional material I have been using, and this has yielded a lot of failures in the attempts.

**********

So, although I have made some progress even with collaging spit-shaded paintings on paper onto board that I then painted on, I would like to also continue doing paintings in all one media in the coming months.

I do still like the 'casing-paper' and have been making bigger portions, which is a long, grueling, smelly process.  Although spit-shading doesn't work, I do like the effects of regular acrylic paint and brush-lined ink. 

I've also been researching Jim Nutt. His work on plexiglass is echoed here in my paintings on casing. If I lay the casing thin enough, without making it too thin, as it would be impossible to tear off of aluminum foil, the painting can be seen from both sides. The reverse side interesting because the pattern in the casing is prominent.

I'd also like to continue doing these casing paintings....with more compositional focus than just a pig head as in the one pictured.

**********

The realizations and struggle this month had to happen.  Tattoo definitely changed the way I approached art making and I've got to take the good from it and leave what is keeping me from making art that works. And I'm still working, but overall there is progress...on to the next one! 

Gutskin

Well some success today as another experiment in stretching and drying porcine casing to use as surface medium finally worked!

After a few dozen tries to stretch and dry these over various surfaces, and drying techniques I found that stretching unbleached casing onto the dull side of aluminum foil and drying for 12 hours indoors at room temperature will hold the shape you stretch it in as well as separate from the foil easily enough.

The casing seems to be able to layer, or vary the width, as this piece has at its thickest is 5 layers.

I really like the aesthetic; the different thickness (and therefor varying opaqueness), the vascular appearance, and texture.

From prior experiments it holds acrylic paint sufficiently, so there may be interesting uses for this as a viable surface, as well as addition to other surfaces.

Peeling away the foil

Against white paper

Everything is coming along, now I just have to figure out the art part...

With support of the folks at the Cape Fear Studios here in downtown Fayetteville, I have successfully helped to organize and will facilitate a figure drawing class.  This is very advantageous as I have been traveling to figure drawing classes an hour away in Raleigh, and an hour and a half to Durham twice a week, as Fayetteville did not have any class available.

I've been struggling a bit reconsidering my process after the residency, however I do feel I've made progress, even if no actual finished pieces yet. This weekend will be my first meet with my mentor Lavar Monroe, and I look forward to the feedback and conversation that will guide the semester.

While in Washington DC I will be visiting the Smithsonian American Art Museum, stopping by the Renwick Gallery as well as The Phillips Collection.  The Phillips collection has a Postwar Germanic Expressions exhibit Im excited to check out.


                  From The Phillips Collection website:

                                  "With great excitement, The Phillips Collection’s announces the acquisition of 46 gifts of German and Danish art to the museum’s permanent collection, generously given by art collector and dealer Michael Werner. With selections from the gift on view beginning September 12, this extraordinary gift of painting, sculpture, and works on paper showcases the museum’s commitment to building a carefully crafted collection that reflects museum founder Duncan Phillips’s vision and distinctive eye and advances the understanding of 20th-century European art.

In 1963, Michael Werner opened his first gallery in Berlin, with an exhibition of works by Georg Baselitz. Since then, Michael Werner Gallery—now based in Berlin, New York, and London—has worked with a number of the most important artists of the 20th century, including Marcel Broodthaers, James Lee Byars, Peter Doig, Jörg Immendorff, Per Kirkeby, Markus Lüpertz, A. R. Penck, and Sigmar Polke. Michael Werner and Michael Werner Gallery have a long-standing relationship with the Phillips; their collaboration resulted in this generous gift of 46 works by Georg Baselitz, Jörg Immendorff, Per Kirkeby, Markus Lüpertz, and A. R. Penck. All five were part of a generation of postwar artists who breathed new life into figuration, their work characterized by enormous versatility and a constant search to strike balance between abstraction and figuration, form and color."

Figure drawing in Raleigh

Well, so far I've found an open figure drawing class in Raleigh which is an hour away. The gallery Artspace is a great space with great folks and artists in residence.

This class was mostly quick gesture and a couple 20 minute poses, I will also attend their Long Pose sessions which start in April, as well as a Figure Painting Workshop in May.

Here are a few from the fun last night:

Some work completed during first semester...

Throughout the semester I pushed the possibilities of what I could accomplish with skin tone using liquid acrylic and the spit-shading technique, concentrating on a series of portraits. I also experimented and developed a process to tattoo on rawhide and used pieces of tattooed rawhide to collage with the portraits.  I experimented with hand cut geometric backgrounds to mimic the tattooed geometric patterns.  Each piece was puzzled together to experiment with building surface and background using different, and sometimes untraditional material.


While building on the progress I've made this semester, during the second semester I want to expand compositions and paint more in the overall process of a piece, as well as expand thematically.

'Snake-Skin Jacket'
11"x14"

'No Brainer'
11"x14"

'Center Mass'
11"x14"

'Rats Get Fat'
8"x10"

For the above piece, 'Rats Get Fat, the background photographed image is of a tattoo I did on the person painted.   Here I was experimenting with the experience of the tattooed image and the persons' emotion of the moment, both tattooed and then painted.  However the effect is mostly lost in its entire intention, the experiment of representing the representation was interesting.

'Show Me Your Kitties'
11"x14"

'2nd Mission'
8"x10"

11"x14"

'Raff'
11"x14"

face-tiger study

figure study for medium

ARTIST STATEMENT

In my artistic pursuit, I have an insider point-of-view advantage to a culture and way of life that may be misrepresented by those who are not familiar with its particular distinctions. Using the basic model of portraiture I am highlighting individuals of this life that is synonymous with a depersonalization of identity.  Military life demands an amount of subordination of selfhood; definitely as a soldier, but also as family of a service member.  This amounts to a gradual and intensified anxiety, especially with wars ongoing.  

Sadly this becomes detrimental as some become emotionally lost, and suffer for their experience, as is evident with the large amount of veteran and soldier suicides, as well as divorce rates.

By combining different materials, some unconventional, I am creating ‘mini-alters’ to the people who are carrying that weight. The unconventional material being ‘parts’ that were once living (cow rawhide and porcine intestine casing) represents this disparity of self, and sometimes the reconstruction of that self, or the unfortunate loss of that self eternally.  I’m also using my experience as a tattooer (both conceptually and in the process of making these mini-alters), in which my clients are mostly soldiers, veterans and military families, as I help them memorialize, redefine or symbolize who and what they are by carving it into their skin.  My work here attempts to homage the individuals of this culture by using the experience of myself a soldier, veteran, military spouse, and tattooer. My painted and constructed works are the synthesis of all sides of the experience, and my intention as an artist to return identities to those who are lost.

Semester 1: Summary

Skin in the Game

            When I reported to basic training weeks after completing my undergrad in painting I was unprepared. Hair newly shorn due to the removal of a large red mohawk, I had a head full of theory that leaned toward an anti-authoritative tendency (I carried Noam Chomsky in my rucksack). Adapting to a military climate was…challenging.  In nine weeks however I had been taken apart and rebuilt, all the while understanding somewhere in my over-worked brain and body the transformation was frighteningly well engineered. I knew going into it the challenge I faced, and although sure I would perish more than once during the training, I made it. This experience, renowned by those who have accomplished it as being exponentially the most arduous of their existence, was ironically not as trying as my first semester of grad school. Although like basic training, I am coming to the end of my first semester both with a feeling of accomplishment, better understanding of the work ahead, and an anxious anticipation of what will follow toward completing the program.

            The first residency caught me completely off-guard.  I expected my situation to be wrought with tribulation, as I was unsure of the possibility of switching from tattoo to fine art. During the critiques these suspicions were confirmed, although I was positively affirmed of the possibility of the leap, however it was inferred that my job to find the translation would be as much difficult as definitely necessary if I wanted to find a voice in the art world.  I was given amazing suggestions and direction of how the work I brought to the residency fell short, however the exact direction I was to take was left to personal discovery, and the importance of experimentation with medium, finding ambiguity and viewing more art was insisted upon for the upcoming semester. I took heed and returned home excited and unsure how to continue, and knowing at least that I wanted to ditch all work up until that point. Then I hit a creative brick wall and had no idea what to actually do. In the ten years I tattooed it was a necessary part of the business that I, as tattooer would constantly produce, regardless of what the client requested.  Tattoos being immediate signifiers, it became requisite that I had a catalogue of images stored to apply to the client’s intention.  Interestingly this also transformed the way I made art.  As ambiguity and conceptuality strengthen art making, it does not necessarily translate to the rules of tattooing, and I realized I had to break down and rebuild.  In a critique with Ben Sloat he encouraged failing, that it would be a part of the process.  This again was so different than tattooing, as failing in someone’s skin is heresy.  This advice however, is what kept me afloat the whole semester, as I did fail many times, until finally arriving at what will be how I continue building the language I use to convey the messages I feel obliged. 

Without knowing exactly how to proceed, I started medium experimentation.  I started cutting up porcine casing which is the outer covering of pig intestines used to make sausage. As mentioned in my residency summary, in a critique I had with Nancy Meyer, she suggested I investigate the art making possibilities of casing, as we discussed finding different ways to build what I paint on as well as keeping with the notional aspect of art on living surface via tattoo, as well as continuing the spit-shade painting technique.  I thought the suggestion was awesome and definitely worth trying, although the act of cutting intestines and stretching them enacted contention from friends and family, the deviance of it only solidified my excitement of its conceptual possibility. After trying various ways to stretch it, I found the most visually gratifying was to stretch it over plywood board.  After drying the gut stretched plywood I attempted spit-shading over the casing, only to suddenly recognize that my chosen technique could have volatile complications regarding the possibility of salmonella poisoning.  As spit-shading requires using the artists own spit, a brush is repeatedly put in the mouth. This became problematic after using it on the casing, as intestines are notorious for harboring such menacing bacteria as salmonella. Obviously failing in this instance had life-preserving obligation. 

            During this time I also I saw the Open This End collection at the Nasher Museum at Duke University, which was a terrific exhibit to attend while figuring how to incorporate more ambiguity and conceptuality in my work.  The artist I have taken most from in that collection is Wangechi Mutu, although the experience of the collection as a whole was epic in my deliverance from the naïve obviousness of my former work.  I also saw the dddrrraaawwwiiinnnggg exhibit at the Contemporary Art Museum of Raleigh. The accessibility of the drawing movement and the low-brow connection seemed a possibility to how I could bridge tattooing with fine art, and as expressed in my residency summary I considered that drawing was possibly where my art fell on the spectrum, at this point doubting I was a painter at all. I was still flailing quite a bit at this point, and still trying to paint on intestines.  I also attempted a few paintings on paper, although subject matter felt mostly contrived.

            Meeting with my mentor, Gary Bolding, for the first time put an end to the aimless wandering it felt as if I were doing.  It became clear how the program then works (along with research papers which also became essential to the process), and after the first meet I was decidedly put back in action.  He informed me that I was in fact painting, and suggested Gregory Gillespie, Lucian Frued and William Beckman.  He also suggested I paint more from life and really observe skin, as well as correct anatomical issues, recommending I make a series of portraits.  On the presentation of using porcine casing, he was interested, but understandably explained the aspect of having to know what it is to appreciate the intention, as well it didn’t allow for spit-shading.  I went back to the drawing board with the aim to further develop the surface of painted skin, and discover how much I could develop the spit-shade technique. I then bought a magnifying visor. I wore it with a headlamp attached. I spent much longer on paintings as I did previously, finding that layering the liquid acrylic proved fantastic in describing skin, and I am still pursuing the possibilities.  The suggestion of Gregory Gillespie has been optimal along these lines. His pathological obsession with skin texture motivated my desire to find how far I could take spit-shading and liquid acrylic as compared to his oil paintings.

 Concurrently with developing skin texture, ideas such as obsession and compulsion that seemed the way I was painting skin started to mimic personal life.  The constant anxiety of military life, and the existence it creates, causes these ‘fun’ personality dilemmas, at least personally. I was beginning to realize that in my technique I was building conceptuality pertaining to life-as-I-knew-it, without cutting up pig insides but in the painting itself. Although the intestines haven’t been taken from the chopping block just yet either.

            One of the issues I faced during the initial residency was that there was a lack of unified focus in my work, as there were directly tattoo style paintings, and more painterly figurative works, two different styles that did not blend in the work.  There was much I wanted to present but without crafted nuances of fine art to do so, my visual dialect was premature.  The possibility of combining tattoo and fine art continues to be apart of how I approach art making, however I understand more the language to make it work cohesively.  In a critique with Sunanda Sanyal he suggested using photography and perhaps collage.  At the time I highly doubted being able to successfully incorporate photography, but with the artists I have discovered during this semester I arrived at an effective use of exactly what Sunanda suggested, in a way that satisfies different mediums without sacrificing the intended aesthetic. 

Along with his excruciatingly detailed portraits, Gillespie also experimented with collage and alter-like constructions in his later works.  Likewise, Mutu has used collage in groundbreaking inventive ways pertaining to modern imagery.  I had discovered that spit-shading could only work on paper, and in that decision it became obvious that the way in which to build the surface could be through collage, cutting out the painted imagery and collaging it with other imagery and material.  Along with deciding resolutely on painting on paper, I still felt it necessary to represent the mark making quality of tattoo. Perhaps removing from that process the importance of a signifying image and focusing on the actual mark-making quality of needle to skin. Of course I’d have to remove the living quality of the skin. So I used dead skin.  I started experimenting with rawhide. After (once again) many failed attempts, I figured out a process to tattoo rawhide, and the interesting aspect of using this once living skin that is now carved with tattoo, as a part of the collage. The marks made on rawhide are different than on living skin and they hold to a more primitive aesthetic which I wanted to promote, but unsure of what exact marks to make.  Conceptually worthy to me due to its anxious (when tattooed) and compulsive design was to attempt tattooing geometric shapes and tessellations on the rawhide. The anxiety produced both in this difficult procedure and the visual outcome fit the intended ideas presented by the imagery it is collaged with.  I began painting obsessively detailed skin and tattooing geometric patterns on rawhide. Anxiety abounds.

            There is a structural quality to the work now.  Collaging painted images carved out of heavy weighted paper and rawhide that is carved into, there’s new dimension being achieved.  This alludes to Gillespie’s alter-like constructions as well as Mutu’s ability to create sculpturesque images with her collages. At least that’s how it’s beginning to develop.  With the use of collage I can also incorporate the porcine casing as aspects of the construction of the piece, building the surface. 

This leads up to the most thematically conceptual aspect of my work so far, which considers the idiom of having ‘Skin in the Game’.  Its etymology derived from financial dealings, it basically means having much to lose in a given situation. From the research done this semester on the Impressionists and their implementation of the responsibility of the artist being to paint life in Baudelaire’s Painter of Modern Life, I consider it personally imperative that my work expresses how I experience the world I know.  Which is why I gravitate toward artists such as Mutu, whom meet that challenge head-on and develop a visual language based on imagery taken from modern life.  The high anxiety, demand and consequences of active-duty military life makes it impossible not to react to. [1]  There is definitely an aspect to this life in which you feel you have ‘skin in the game’, or much to lose in your dealings within it.  Literally this works as well, being that I’m attempting to paint skin obsessively, and tattooing skin to use in the collage. Through the use of collaging experimental material and cutout painted images I’m developing a visual dialogue between my experience as a tattooer, the experience of living a military life and the way in which this has enabled and constructed my identity.  The cutting, slicing, carving, use of intestines and skin, as well as my actual saliva to blend my paint all works conceptually in a juxtaposition of images and materials I don’t intend to pacify the viewer with. The uneasily tattooed geometric lines and obsessively layered ‘spit-paint’ reiterate this. [2]

Overall the first semester was intensely transforming. There is definitely more confidence in the approach to art making, while concurrently is the desire to branch out to more intense compositions, while still keeping with the process I’m developing.  I have a much different reaction to failure and understand how it can positively alter process.  I also have accepted that my work will reflect a manic energy I have and embrace the anxiety of personal situations both with imagery and material.  I have no choice but to contend visually with reality and experience, the continuing objective is to create work that will endure respectively.

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[1] Before my third meeting with my mentor we lost another friend to suicide.  This happened two months after another veteran friend had succumbed to the same. Both men served with my husband during his second deployment.  This is a very real epidemic among vets. I could do nothing but try to paint a reaction to this. Although the piece is still not completely working, it is however instrumental to my work this semester as a whole.

[2] The process has become more definite as I progress with pieces.  Initially there is a written brainstorm as I collect imagery and decide on subject to paint. Then a schematic is developed as to the design and how the piece is layered, planning out the drying stages of the rawhide or casing used as well. These pieces are much more labor and time intensive than those brought to the initial residency and I’m beginning to work accordingly.

Rawhiiiiide!

After the first mentor meeting and looking at artist Gregory Gillespie, I committed myself to working from life more and building the surface of my paintings more by layering the acrylic using spit-shading.  For convenience I grabbed my son as model. Obviously because he is easy access, but also because I wasn't embarrassed to stare at his cheek up close for awhile. He, on the other hand, thought this was annoyingly weird.

Vincent

I also painted a background, using a geometric composition. I enjoy juxtaposing the patterns of his clothes with that of the geometric background. As well as the patterns on the pillows. Then the representation of tattoo flash to the right of subject.  I like the idea that tattooed people are 'patterned skin'. 

This presented an epiphanic moment to me. A visual theme I want to include and consider will be patterns. How visual patterns direct/affect the viewer.

Along with experimenting with the visual effects of spit-shaded liquid acrylic, I've been trying to tie in the actual process of tattoo in my work.

I've considered painting on other materials as well as unconventional material such as the porcine casings. Although I have gotten some satisfying effects of drying porcine on paper, to actually spit-shade on it did not produce the desired smoothness that the technique enables on paper. Spit-shading is very specific to its materials, from the paper to the brushes to the liquid acrylics used. It takes awhile to' work in' a brush. And I then primarily stick to four main brushes, until the absolute need to replace, which is met with grief. Maybe its how the spit break-in the brush, maybe its my OCD, either way its specifics such as this that define my process. Interestingly this is also true to some tattooer (myself included). The way in which I would prepare my tools etc for a tattoo was very specific,  ritualistic. This ritual was essential.

So I am continuing on the same watercolor paper, as well as figuring out how I want to interpret tattoo. While on a search for actual parchment I was directed to a leather shop. Considering the option of possibly painting leather, I also was introduced to large rawhide sheets. When soaked the rawhide becomes malleable. I bought some leather and rawhide.

Conceptually working in these materials is great, being that they are both skins of animals. I asked the very friendly leather salesman in he ever heard of tattooed rawhide, to which he said if he could figure out how to do it he would make a bunch o money. he said unfortunately the rawhide will 'blow out the ink and not hold the line'.......  malleable

Dry rawhide

After soaking the rawhide, it is in fact maleable. After different attempts and changing needles and messing with the tattoo machine as well as doctoring the ink a bit, I was able to tattoo a design on a piece of rawhide. There are similarities with tattooing skin and rawhide, but the guy was right, its hard to make a clean line without it blowing out. But it is possible, as I figured out. Even with imperfect line there is mark making happening, and this with suffice in how I will represent tattoo in my work. I am pleased that the actual process of tattoo is still used...the way in which i present the two visual pieces together will be through collage. 

What I tattoo and how the tattooed rawhide I use in the painting will work on different levels, both visually and conceptually.

Tattooed rawhide segment

The picture above shows the successful segment of tattooed rawhide. I experimented with forming the piece into an arm-like shape, and then letting that dry and harden. There is possibility of trying 3-D pieces with this possibly in future.  

The lines and shading are imperfect, as rawhide differs from living skin. I actually like this idea as well. Nevertheless, as stated before, there is mark making. Even if some lines spread into the veins of the rawhide, I like the possibilities with that as well. 

Self-portrait

The above is the first attempt of incorporating everything I've been working on thus far.  The bodice thing is the tattooed rawhide, of which a tessellation pattern was tattooed. The rawhide then dried and adhered to the painting, which was done on watercolor paper, which was cut out and adhered to a photograph , which is adhered to a pre-fab board. The rawhide also adds physical dimension, as it is about a centimeter thick. This allows for pieces to be cut out, like the center circle with a traditional tattooed rose inside it.  With this centimeter thick boarder around the rose I was able to fill that with resin. The outcome makes rose look more ornamental,  an aspect of the painting that is given a kind of 'sacred housing'.

I intend to do more along these lines. Pushing my technique both of spit-shading and tattooing rawhide. Hopefully joining them in compositionally interesting collages.

Update, and the first mentor meeting...

 After the post-residency brain scramble and strange experimentation I embarked on thereafter I had returned a bit more to painting, although subject matter was beginning to transform. Maybe in my experiments with the innards of pigs, I'm not sure, but I began to enjoy making these kind of '2D taxidermy' people-animal beings. Initially I was going to paint on paper, then adhere to pre-fab board and after applying few coats of medium, then wrap the board, and painting with the pig casing.

Nope

So this was the first painting I was planning on wrapping in casing. It was a total fail,as well as it didn't incorporate human parts, although i was thinking of adding a hand. Regardless I wasn't happy so I ditched it. I do however like the hair.

This I was happier with. The awkward synthesis of human/tiger was intentional, although I'm not sure it looks that way. New discoveries were made as far as the possibilities of spit-shading. worked more into it and I'm happy with the result, especially the hair on the tiger part.

This I attempted to wrap in casing. After coating it 3 times with matte medium, I began to lay the casing as I had on the previous boxes.

******* Since I had realized while making previous boxes of the salmonella threat, I also used casings that were pre-soaked in bleach and anti-bacterial soap.*********

After laying a few over the painting.....the paint started to separate and bleed. At this point I liked this painting, so I pulled casings off and was able to save it.  I may need to soak the bleach more out of the casing, and put more coats of finish on the painting, however I took a break from it at this point: FAIL, more or less.

I decided to paint a more involved composition of taxiderm-ied people, so I started this:

After the ddddrrrrraaaawwwwwiiiinnnngggg exhibit I saw in Raleigh At the Contemporary Art Museum and looking at works of Amy Cutler and Marcel Dzama, as well as others in Vitamin D: New Perspectives in Drawing, I began to think I was possibly akin to drawing more than painting, as I presented in my 'Residence Summary', as well as the reasons why.  I thought that is where spit-shading could situate, especially since like drawing, spit-shading is a pre-production technique, leading to tattoo.

I went to the first mentor meeting with Gary Bolding with this in mind. I felt I had a little more direction than where my brain was right after residency, but still something felt a bit unresolved.

One of the reasons I wanted a mentorship with Gary was because of his masterful technique as a figurative oil painter as well as the sometimes odd subjects he paints.

The meeting was completely helpful. I went away from it with a more tangible plan of what I need to work on for the first semester (the nit and grit of the work). We discussed the investigation of skin and obsessiveness the artist has with it and how that can relate conceptually to tattooing.  He pointed out my technical shortcomings even considering the fantastical absurdity of some figures. He mentioned early works of Lucien Freud and more-so the work of Gregory Gillespie.  As well as his contemporary William Beckman.

 Of the pieces I had brought to the residency, he concentrated on one I had completely hated post residency. 

When I showed this at residency it had had a sheet of frosted plexiglass suspended over it which obscured the painting.  When I showed it to Gary, it was like this, no plexiglass.  He pointed out the successes with skin texture, as well as failures of anatomy (eyes, nose). 

Gary also confirmed I was a painter, that what I was doing with spit-shading qualified. This was important to hear as I had considered the possibility I was more making marks closer to what artists in drawing movements are doing.  This redirected my association to my work, which was reiterated after looking at Gregory Gillespie's work. Maybe spit-shading is neither, both ....I'm not sure it matters to label it, but as I develop the technique more it helps to understand it in a way that will help direct how I work. 

Gregory Gillespie:

Self-Portrait On Bed
1973-1974
Oil and Magna on Wood

Self-Portrait with Beads and Charkras
1987-1988
Oil and Alkyd on Panel

Self-Portrait (Torso)
1975
Oil and Acrylic on Wood Panel

Self-Portrait with Banana
2000
Oil on Wood over Photograph

We also discussed my lack of composition in a lot of my painting. He suggested looking at Philip Pearlstein, as well as Degas, Vermeer.