Grant Cleveland- Creator

Self-Portrait

This self-portrait represents the perception of reality I experience and some of the influencing and base factors.  First off, the only part of my body shown in this self-portrait are my eyes.  I think this represents how I see and perceive life, which really is a portrait of what matters.

I see everything below my eyes and what influences what I think about what I see is shown above my eyes.  So I have a tri-polar vision that hones in on what is bad and tragic (the fire), what is seemingly normal and docile, but turned upside down (the sun lying on the grass with the sky above it), and the hidden royalty (purple band).  The water and the influence of moving water are both in my vision and in my mind.  There is some fundamental positive power in water that I recognize.  The smoke on the right side of the painting represents all the smoke, propaganda, lies, and bullshit that we are confronted with every day.

The cause and important part of what I see though goes on in my mind and that is wheat is shown above my eyes.  This is where things get interesting. The grey circle represents the grey area that I gravitate to.  This is the area where the line between right and wrong gets blurry.  It is not Democratic, Republican, or Independent- it is relinquishing power to what is logically right, without prejudice.  It is the terrifying consequence from revealing the truth. It is not black or white and may side with either.   It can be good and it can be bad.  The fact of the matter is that bad sometimes is good.  It enters the region where unconditional loyalty is deployed.  I find this area interesting, dynamic, and where I am and want to be.

The sunlight trickling through represents the goodness present in me, one that is all-encompassing but its source elusive. It makes me optimistic, naïve, and gullible and see and do the good that I do.  The grey circles with the red borders represent my first eighteen years.  Eighteen years of pain and the ensuing consequences that developed into tumors to my thinking and my life.  The red represents the blood caused by this pain from the past that continues to impact my life currently.  The royalty transcends my scope of vision and is part of my DNA and I believe is part of the source of my gifts and my insanity and impacts how I see and perceive reality.

As you can see, I recognize what I see and how my head is influencing what I am seeing and perceiving and that is who I am.  This is one perspective of myself by myself in one state of mind on one day.  This picture is fluid and dynamic and changing.  There are some constants though, and that is what I tried to focus on.