The silver Tiffany frame delivered by Ms Tien Claudio represented a cracked glass as well as a cracked marriage. I didn’t ask how either of them had broken, but I had a feeling the one was caused by the other. Keeping the cracks didn’t seem so nice, in my view, as my first impression of Ms Claudio was one of optimism and openness to life, but clearly, the portrait still held some significance to her, otherwise why would she have handed it in? Turning it back and forth and up and down in my mind for a bit, the focus of my interest landed more and more on the people in the image, and less so on the frame. Sure, it was a nice frame, but it would always be insignificant compared to the legacy the portrait itself held in Ms Claudio’s life. So the broken glass had to go, and after a bit of deliberation I decided to also get rid of her ex-husband. The new portrait, without glass but with a small mirror and a more open function, better represents where Tien is today I hope.

It is funny how artworks sometimes name themselves. In the case of this re-worked portrait, it happened as soon as I put it up for display in the shop window of Transformer. I do this with all finished artworks, as a way of showing people passing by what we are doing and how it works. In this case it really worked quickly: just as I placed the portrait, a man who was watching me from outside knocked on the window and called in to me. “Hey there, can I be the mystery man?” he asked with a huge grin, after having imagined himself on that beach. Of course I couldn’t answer that question for Tien, but I still had my title given to me.