"Flapper lost in her thoughts*"
*Inspired by a photo of Betty Compson
(collage and oil painting on glass, 11X14, 2009)
"Man looks in the abyss, there's nothing staring back at him. At that moment, man finds his character. And that is what keeps him out of the abyss."
Hal Holbrook
"It's the way to educate your eyes. Stare. Pry, listen eavesdrop. Die knowing something. You are not here long."
Walker Evans
Have you ever stared at somebody lost deep into his or her thought, looking absentmindedly into nothing? When a person catches you looking at him – usually he would give you a smile. At all other times most people just look the other way and pretend not to notice you. So what is it that while being caught off-guard and alone with our thoughts we tend to smile at strangers who just witnessed us in a middle of our private moment?
Years of crafting our own images make us go through life keeping up appearances day in and day out; the majority of us self-conscious on some level about what we do and how we look doing it. Spacing out is one of the rare moments when we let our guard down and we react to things naturally, without an opportunity to form a plan of action before we react. As an artist I constantly stare at people. I love watching their faces and wondering what they are thinking about. Quite unethically perhaps, I regard a visual invasion of somebody else’s privacy as something amusing. I like when people I’m staring at find it amusing as well. I like when I’m caught ‘spying’ a person I’m staring at smiles at me instead of looking away. I always have a special appreciation for moments like that...
