WAR IS PEACE

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

and all that

https://youtu.be/11lPhMSulSU

because the very first thing you say in this post basically amounts to “I think I have the authority to decide the basis on which we determine who deserves to vote”

like, yeah, most people can navigate to their secretary of state websites. And it’s not really your responsibility to have to link the pages anyway.

But doing it for that reason aligns you philosophically with people who think that the illiterate, the elderly, the poor, the disabled, the critically ill, etc. somehow don’t deserve to vote. It aligns you ideologically with other people who think they can decide who deserves to vote, with people who want to disenfranchise others-- in essence, it aligns you ideologically with many Republicans

Are you an artist? I don’t know many artists with your perspective, but I don’t want to say artists never have this perspective.

As someone with higher education in studio arts, I can’t speak for all artists. But I can say, in my experience, the cognitive skills that allow an artist to break a subject down into base, renderable components aren’t particularly burdened by familiarity. Like, I don’t think it’s harder to realistically paint my face, or my spouse’s face, etc. than it is to paint anyone else’s face. Part of that is just that it’s generally hard to render faces realistically without adding stylistic choices or bridging over the tricky parts, whether the face is familiar or not. Again, just my experience.

I also don’t think realism or “visually accuracy” is necessary for a good self portrait. Sometimes the self portrait is an introspective exercise. Sometimes a self portrait is not representative of our physical self at all, or is fully abstract.

This self portrait is lovely, especially since I feel like (read: don’t know for sure) based on the title that he tried to capture his expressive emotions during a vulnerable moment. It’s raw.