(#76) THACKREY & ROBERTSON:

Edition of 2130 of which 300 copies are signed 1-300,
26 copies are signed A-Z as artist's proofs,
and five sets are signed as progressives.

August 10, 1978 Eight colors, including gold foil stamping done by Marier

Engraving 16" x 24"

Client: Sean Thackrey & Sally Robertson,
Thackrey & Robertson Gallery, 2266 Union Street,
San Francisco CA 94123.
Telephone (415) 567-4842

Model: Brenda Dawson A-Z: Artist's own use.

The only reality is between our two ears. Our five senses feed information into the crowded darkness, where it is interpreted, compared with other information, evaluated and stored away. Other people are not real to us. They are constructs of our own minds, and that is where they live. Someone we know only casually exists as a set of stereotypes, and we are often surprised when they do not conform to what we expected.

As we get more information about another person, they become more complex. But always they are shadows on the walls of our minds. Even people we know well can astonish us when they do something that the person in our mind would not do. This is because the person inside our mind is really a part of us, and does only what we think they would do. When new information arrives, we revise the construct, but always after our own image, picking and choosing what we will let in and what is not acceptable.

There is no other reality. There is no other way of dealing with other people than to cut them out carefully, staying within the lines that they draw around themselves, and expanding their wardrobes piece-by-piece, folding the tabs and neatly putting the garments on or taking them off. As we live inside our minds, so do others live inside theirs, and we are often deeply shocked by how different the self that lives in another's mind is from the self that lives in our own. There is no reconciling the two, and all we can hope is that they take good care of our image in their minds, and don't scribble on us or play with us too roughly and tear us, or crumple us up and throw us away.