I'd always thought of the self-portrait as being someone other than me, as if the subject were a character in a drama. The process of painting myself is not one of flattery, as with most commissioned portraits, but rather of discovery, and I like the idea of stepping outside myself to observe myself. Recently, however, I learned of the late photographer Minor White (1908-1976), whose subjects covered a wide range including portraits, but who specialized in photographing objects in tight close-up so that they appeared abstract. White once declared that every photograph he made, no matter the subject matter, was a self-portrait. By this he meant that the act of creating a work of art is an act of revealing oneself. I've been forced to reassess by ideas about the self-portrait.