While every picture might tell a story, sometimes the back of the picture hints at several others. Scrawled, scratched and painted on the back of the painting now titled Comfort Zone are the following notations: MAY 2001… Reworked 6-10-01… Re-Worked Again August 2002… “Typhoon”… 2005 NOV… COMFORT ZONE 2007.

I don’t have photos of all these various states, but I do have pictures of the two most important states.

First is Typhoon:

Typhoon is a self-portrait. The title was taken from a fortune cookie fortune which is part of the painting (the long rectangle in the dark area below my hand). As the painting was reworked, the “Learn Chinese” text became illegible.

A key element of this painting is an image of a house, a recurring motif, and I think a symbol of the search for security. Additional images of note are a person swimming (above the peak of the house), a pair of disembodied wings (bottom right), and the Page of Pentacles (also at bottom right).

The image in the center is a Photoshopped photo of myself, playing my electric guitar circa 1999-2000. For the record I am a terrible guitar player, but I bought the electric guitar shortly after the end of a long relationship, and wailing way on it was somehow very comforting. I doubt my neighbors of the time would concur on this, but I digress.

The center of the painting was alway problematic. In the first iterations of this painting, the center was a void. Then it housed the above image of myself. And finally (?) it houses the image of a friend:

I took this photo back in 1990 as part of a final project for a photography class. The theme of the project was artists in their studios.

The painting is now called Comfort Zone:

It may seem odd to change a self-portrait into a portrait, but it makes a certain sense to me. At the time of the completion of Comfort Zone, she occupied a similar mental space as I did when this painting was first conceived. The painting feels more finished than it ever did before. Will I change it again in the future? I don’t think so, but I’m not willing to bet the farm on it either. Stay tuned.