PORTRAITURE, FACES & MASKS - One night, I got home very late and there was a documentary on T.V. about Frederick Douglass. I was incredibly moved by his life, and went out and immediately read three books about him. His autobiography is wonderfully written. I admire him greatly and he has become a personal hero to me.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with him, I will explain his story. He was a black slave from the United States who escaped from his white master and taught himself how to read and write. He was a writer and a lecturer who struggled for equality. He eventually became friends with President Lincoln. He had initially married a black woman and they had several children. Yet, after she died, he remarried a white woman suffragette who was approximately thirty years younger than him.

I deeply admire how he created his own destiny and ignored the limitations that society had put upon him. He has a beautiful face and I’ve tried to show his immense strength of character and intensity. I plan to do more work about him.