Go, a head.

When you look at a piece of artwork, you need to look at it from far away, right up close, with your eyes squinted... look at it from various places so that you can see every different level of perception of it. But when you create an artwork, it's - initially - important to maintain one point of view (unless you're a Cubist).

When I was painting my visionary friend's portrait - the very first painted portrait for my "Before I Transfer" project - we sat across a table/desk from each other in his office. While we were chatting amiably with each other, I felt as though I was able to maintain a stable point-of-view throughout the session. Sure, the portrait looks like him, but there are a few measurement quirks in the drawing.

Is that really "the way I see" him? (With his neck elongated, eyes too close together and forehead too tall? But that's a great hairdo, yeah, I'll keep that.) My memory tells me that I know what he looks like because I can see the original Elvin constructed in my head. When I measure the painting against my memory, I see the real Elvin in the remembered notes of the adjustments I need to make in the painting to re-present him accurately.

I've been struggling with writing this post because I wanted to take my friend's portrait and make the adjustments before I show it to you. But what is this project about - the paintings? The memories? The experiences embedded between the marks? And that's where I stopped struggling and began writing this post, "between the marks," as it were. So many of our memories are captured there. Between the shutter-clicks, between the lines. But what's most important to me is not whether I've made a photograph - in paint - of my friend, but that I've embedded him into my memory.