Yesterday, I received an email from Duncan Long with the following portrait attached. Duncan told me that he had seen my blog post on Resolutions and had decided to take the first picture I posted as his daily exercise. And he created the portrait I’m including here.

I was, of course, absolutely blown away to receive something like that. My grandmother was a painter, so I’ve lived with art, and among artists, my whole life. When I go to conventions, I always come home with limited edition prints or, if I can splurge, something original.

And I’ve always loved being painted, much more than being photographed. My grandmother’s painted me of course, and my husband has drawn me. (He was trained as an artist, and is a talented cartoonist as well.) When I was in college and needed money, I worked as an artist’s model, both for classes and for a professional artist who lived in the area. A friend of mine was startled to walk into the senior art show and see me on the wall, in a fairly large lithograph.

Paintings have a perspective and focus that I think photographs lack. For example, to me, Duncan’s painting isn’t really a painting of me. It’s a painting of light. I’m the object (or in this case subject) on which light falls.  (Although I’m amazed by the hands, which are so completely my hands.  I think I would recognize them anywhere.)

What a wonderful present to receive on the last day of the year, so I could post it on the first . . .