Self Portrait: Totem view 1

Cedar, walnut, copper, hand and rotary tool work

So I'm going to be uncharacteristically chatty because the piece makes me uncomfortable, for obvious reasons. I came up with a title only to post it here and Self Portrait: Totem of the Long Loneliness (as usual my titles wont fit in the text field) sprang to mind. I had some other title ideas before what went in the chest was finalized...

The title derives from Dorothy Day's autobiography, The Long Loneliness (a very good book by the way). Been a while since I read it, but in that context the phrase is not quite negative, it has to do with the inner emptiness that draws us to God...

A somewhat self-indulgent whim, I don't tend to like self-portraits as a genre. I spent a while deciding what went in the chest. I really meant to drive something through the heart, but someone convinced me to leave it unmarred. I appreciate the symbolism of second guessing my instinct there. Though like this it reminds me of nothing so much as the tin man having his heart inserted.