Turn That Frown Upside Down

"Inversion" 7"x 5" oil on "Gessobord" c. 2012

In order to get our German residency permit, we had to get another set of passport photos taken. They conveniently have booths everywhere in the subway stations in Munich so you can do this, but not all booths are created equal.

The photo booth in our U-bahn station had a broken chair, so we had to hover in mid-air to be at the right height for the photo. I had been sick and was still pretty culture shocked in October, but we needed that photo for the next day. The result was an awful photo. It was such a bad photo that the Germans rejected it and I still had to pay for another one.

  Yes, I felt the way I looked that day!

A few weeks later, in the act of tearing it up and throwing it away, I started to look at the pieces and thought they might be interesting for a collage. I kept them, and then when "Professional Artist" magazine announced a self-portrait contest I decided to use them for a painting.

The result was "Inversion". I didn't win the contest. But I did challenge myself. I haven't painted a portrait in years and it took several tries to get it right. I do like the result and I am glad I could change that ugly photo into something interesting and meaningful to me.