A woman came from the Bronx to see one face.
It was the Friday after my debut exhibition. She walked through the work slowly, stopping at each piece, reading the labels and looking again. I didn't tell her I was the artist at first. I wanted to give her room to see the work without me standing beside it explaining anything.
When we finally talked, she told me she had seen Two-Faced in the promotion for the show and wanted to see it in person.
That stayed with me.
Why one face stays with you
I have spent years interested in psychology and human behavior. I also worked as a recovery coach, where listening and paying attention to what people were actually communicating mattered.
The faces in Unapologetic Faces aren't portraits of specific people. They're archetypes. I leave enough unresolved that the person looking at the work has room to bring their own history to it.
That may be why one face means nothing to one person and stops somebody else in the room.
The second look tells me more
At exhibitions, I pay attention when somebody comes back to a piece.
They may have already walked the room. Then they return to one face, stand closer, or take another look from farther away. I don't need to decide what that reaction means for them. The fact that they came back tells me the work held their attention.
The woman from the Bronx had already done that before she arrived. Seeing the photograph wasn't enough for her. She wanted to stand in front of the actual piece.
What happens when you live with art
Buying art is personal. Sometimes you know exactly why a work appeals to you. Sometimes you don't.
If you keep thinking about a piece after you've left the room or closed the browser, pay attention to that. You don't need to turn it into a theory. It may simply be the work you connected with.
Every piece in Unapologetic Faces is one of one. If a work is acquired, that specific work is no longer available. That's a fact worth knowing, but it shouldn't replace the first question: do you actually want to live with it?
The part I remember
I remember that woman because she made the trip for a piece she had only seen in a photograph. Then she stood in front of it and took her time.
For an artist, that's enough.
