the self-portrait sessions

the self-portrait sessions are suites of self-portraits in which my two selves inhabit the same frame. This project evolved out of a video project titled: A child of sixties television singing songs that got stuck in her head, 2010. This video depicts me singing popular opening theme songs from late 50s and 60s television shows. My isolated serenade is captured as I sing Bat Masterson, Rawhide, Yogi Bear, The Mickey Mouse Club, and other once popular melodies to my reflection in a large mirror. In the process of singing for the mirror, I had to take still images for the purposes of focus and composition and those unintentional portraits began to interest me as much as the video work and so I began to take still images of myself in front of the mirror in earnest.

Later, a video work evolved out of the process of taking the still images, and so I had come full circle.

In the late 70s I did a series of black and white self-portraits. Those images were lost and it was only after this new body of work was completed that an old box of prints was unearthed in my mother's house containing a few of the images from that earlier exploration and it is curious to see the persistence of this interest and its permutations over time.

the plaster casts or death masks too, were begun earlier, in 1992 and I returned to having my face cast again 20 years later, in 2012.

installation images Studio 10, 2017

installation images CB1, 2016

the self-portrait sessions, 2016

self-portrait, 1979

bronze and beeswax casts, 2016

installation images: Momenta Art, 2014

untitled video
(the self-portrait sessions_Yaddo session), 2011

the self-portrait sessions,(Yaddo session), 2011

the self-portrait sessions (Yaddo session), 2011

the plaster casts, 1992/2012

the self-portrait sessions (1), 2010

the self-portrait sessions (2), 2010

the self-portrait sessions (3), 2010

(installation at CB1 photo credit: Jay Oligny. installation at Momenta Art and Studio 10 photo credit: Kevin Noble.)