Etching with drypoint and aquatint.

Pleeeeease please full-view

what to say what to say. quite a personal piece which did not have the intention of becoming a self-portrait until it was completed and i realized all the elements i incorporated were appropriated from my past artwork, which said a lot about what was important to me. this represents a search for my identity. as you can see the search is ongoing, as experiences and sensations continue to shape me and add to me layer upon layer something of a character...i've unintentionally defined myself here by my own work and by the way i experience and interact with the world: through sight, sound, and touch, i'm slowly growing and constructing an identity. im at a point in my life where i'm still allowing the world to mould me into who i am, and i am not yet ready to completely expose myself, or to communicate all that is inside me, and that's why there is no mouth in this piece, and my face has only partially emerged from the tree bark. but i have eyes. oh yes, my eyes are wide open. watching and waiting.

the fish is my mother...from a recent painting assignment in which i was to paint an anthropomorphic portrait of my mother. tree for one because of the obvious idea of growth and rings indicating age, and the other reason is that trees have been appearing in all my art lately, including absentminded doodles, so it wouldn't make sense for it not to make an appearance here too.

and i've been asked about the hands...whether they're my hands or someone else's, or they're "carved" into the wood like the rest of my body. i think i've decided they're someone else's hands, putting together the pieces...God's, perhaps? that perception changes almost daily.

i didn't have a solid plan when starting this one. there's something to be said about letting a drawing speak to you. i'd lay something down and then look at it for a very very long time until elements began taking the shape of something else (like an eye becoming a fish) and then i'd bring it out by drawing directly on top of already existing lines. process is the big word here. the end result would not be possible unless i made many mistakes along the way. much like life.