Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. IG: When did you feel that you were an artist? MBM: That’s a hard question. I think when my self portrait was hung in the Metropolitan Museum that totally did it. It countered all the bad (or non-existent) gallery experiences. This one sense of accomplishment, which continued as the painting hung for eight months, was very healing. Also, and maybe more importantly, because I myself felt that my painting held its own against the other paintings. Many of the artists included in this exhibition were painters that I had always loved.... IG: Do you go through any kind of different psychological mode when doing a self portrait? Does it become more about you than about the painting? MBM: I don’t know if you can separate them. IG: When you’re trying to get a likeness sometimes, or trying to capture an essence of someone, you feel like, “Gee, just a little bit more of something, the addition or accentuation of a detail and I’ll have it.” But when it is myself, I think, “Oh yeah, a few brushstrokes and I’m there. The familiarity with the subject makes it seem more direct. MBM: There is always the model issue. You have models for a limited time. You have yourself forever. So, if you want to try something different in a self portrait, you feel freer to take chances. I think I’ve learned a lot doing that. It’s difficult to make yourself take a break, so, basically, you are not able to be objective. I may have worked on one small self portrait for 6,000 hours. I will look at it the next day and do another whole painting. I think every self portrait has a hundred different self portraits underneath. I’m always doing one. IG: You’ve always got one on an easel someplace? MBM: Almost always. IG: It’s a kind of summing up of all that you are up until that moment in time. Have you ever taken them all out and looked at them in chronological order? MBM: I don’t have all of them, but I would love to do that. It would be interesting to see them all together. I would love to have a self portrait exhibition. [http://www.asllinea.org/mary-beth-mckenzie-interview/]