Through My Eyes (Self Portrait)

Dimensions: 36" x 26"
Materials: Icelandic Lopi wool yarn and Halcyon Yarn Rug Wool on monk's cloth
Designed and hooked by Wayne Bressler, New York, New York, 2015.
Featured in: Celebration 26

"While in art school, one of my assignments was to choose a fellow student and create a portrait of him or her using the least amount of visual information while still capturing a realistic representation and their personality. I chose to revisit this theme as my concept for this punched hand-hooked rug, using myself as the subject matter. After taking several photographs of myself, I picked one that I thought captured my personality. Using Photoshop I played with this image, making it a high contrast black and white version of myself, losing all the subtle visual information that wasn’t necessary to capture my likeness. I thought my eyes and glasses told the story best, so I decided to severely crop the photo but kept my hair as an interesting graphic element. I wanted to keep my image for this rug very graphic, using only black and gray wool. Then I decided to add two different pink yarns, suggesting my skin coloring only in a minimal way."
- Wayne Bressler, Celebration Hall of Fame 2018