Self portrait 4
The last of this summer series in my childhood home. You can see from the placement of the crystals in this painting that I was suffering from sciatica in my legs. My pain tends to creep into other parts of my body when it's irritated, and for a while it was in my legs with bad sciatic nerve pain. i was living in a dorm on the 4th floor and walked up many flights of stairs each day. I don't remember what it was that made it go away, but I rarely have sciatic pain now. I'm very grateful for that.
Representing the pain with crystals came from a feeling of hardness, almost like a sharp crust in my muscles and vertebrae. I'd love to recreate this piece someday but much bigger, since this whole series was on paper not much bigger than a notebook sheet.