2003

My dad and I had spent a great day together revisiting favorite spots around Albuquerque. I am not a portraitist, so when I decided to paint my father from a photo taken that day, I expected to struggle a bit with the face. To my surprise, the faces of other male family members began appearing in the painting, first my brother and then each of my father’s brothers in turn. This was not what I had planned! It was entirely involuntary—an amazing experience. Eventually everyone calmed down, and I was able to approximate the face of my father; but what I learned, at a very visceral level, was that family roots go way deeper than I had thought, and that we are who we are partly because of this.