This bag is called This Is A Dolphin-Shaped Bandwagon.  Like the work itself, the title is personal to its primary audience, the subject.  Since I paint portraits, the highly personalized element is clearly important in all of my paintings.  And it’s part of what I love so much about portrait painting as opposed to other genres: most artists can’t guarantee that their work will touch anyone, but a portraitist knows that, for every one of her-his works, she-he will have a riveted audience of at least one. Love it or hate it, a subject can’t help but be deeply affected by art that has her-his likeness in it.  I am especially interested in the portrait bags as a still more intimate form of art—one that, in its functionality, becomes an intrinsic part of the subjects’ everyday lives.

This is my second portrait of Wade: he also modeled for a painting in 2004.