"Mirror, mirror..."

(acrylic painting on plywood, 24X36, 2000)

"You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul"
George Bernard Shaw

"Look in a mirror and one thing's sure; what we see is not who we are."
Richard Bach

" Monkeys are superior to men in this: when a monkey looks into a mirror, he sees a monkey."
Malcolm De Chazal

I've always had a strange relationship with mirrors. When I was little I couldn't understand why whenever I did something in front of a mirror my reflection repeated all of my actions with the opposite hands... As a right-handed person I somehow expected my reflection to be right-handed as well and I couldn't grasp why my reflection appeared to be left-hand.

I eventually understood how reflective surfaces work and was OK with them until I found something else that made me suspicious of mirrors. When I was about nine I read a horror story about a boy who started seeing someone else's reflection in the mirror only to find out that the woman he was seeing was a murder victim who sought the boy's help in catching her killer. So for the next several years I was afraid that one fine day I would glance in the mirror while brushing my teeth and see some decomposing corpse staring back at me. With time I was able to overcome my fear of seeing dead people in the mirror, but I managed to acquire a new mirror-related phobia.

When I was about twelve I became very interested in all things paranormal. I had a particular interest in scrying. I've tried it on several occasions using two facing mirrors, but without any success. At some point it occurred to me that if I were actually able to see something in the mirror I would probably die of fright. I spent the next year begging God to make sure that the only thing I would ever see in the mirror would be my own reflection doing what a reflection is suppose to do. Even today I sometimes get an iffy feeling when approaching a mirror, especially if it's late at night.