On modeling

My first job out of grad school was teaching at a small midwestern college. One of my friends and colleagues at the college approached me one day and asked if I could be his “face” model. He was an art professor and had gotten a commission to do a large oil painting. I certainly did not consider myself “model” material, but with my (at the time) long dark hair and beard on a much younger/thinner face; well, he anyway felt that my face and head would fit the subject of his commission. I sat for him on several occasions. For a variety of unrelated reasons, I never got to see the finished work, but he told me later that the clients were quite happy with it.

Ergo, somewhere in rural Missouri, a large oil painting hangs on the wall of a funeral home. My face is on a lone figure wearing a long, white flowing robe standing on a hillside. The figure is holding a crook staff and has sheep gathered at his feet.

I am actually glad that I never saw the finished work.

There are some mental images that one just shouldn't have.
There are some things best left unseen.