Since a young woman, I take self-portraits with a variety of

photographic media. Very often I take self-portraits to re-enter my

life, feel an emotion, and authenticate that I am here. I recognize

that photography enables me to feel strong and reclaim myself. I use

the camera as a method for healing, and through my work I overcome my

weaknesses.  Knowing and accepting whom one is, how one looks and what

one wants—is very important to me as a woman. This project is a

philosophical reflection about aging, accumulation and identity.

I have looked at myself throughout the years in many different

circumstances: obsessions, addictions, reveries, deepest depressions,

stigma, abuse, healing, and sexuality.Yet, I always seem to be doing

it in the context of a more external conflict. As I look back at these

portraits, I realize there seems to be a block between the expression

of my feelings and the way I traveled and lived in the world. It is as

if I want to remove myself from my reality and hide. Yet, that's just

a protection, a skin, and a veil. Meanwhile, the point of my life is

to be exposed, and the point of my vision is to be vitally opened and

able to bleed. This is my way of knowing that I will prevail.

Contemplating the hurts I've buried and the disappointments in my

career I have hidden, while making sense of all the styles that I have

embraced in photography—this project is an intervention into myself.

Through these self-portraits, I force myself to look at the material

below the surface of the picture planes: the codes, thoughts, emotions

and colors. These self-portraitures are guides into my life beyond the

veil. Focusing intensely on these images is an outlet to transcend the

physical and look for something internal. I can't go back and retake

these images. I can't recreate this story or the self-portraits in the

same way. I cannot hide. These self-portraits function as a conduit

for tearing myself apart and rebuilding my self-esteem.

There is a value on how one person, one woman, saw these sixty years

of her life. This is my life.