This form of misrecognition, as it happens, is a well-known phenomenon. Studies have shown that when we approach a mirror (or sit before a camera) we do a fair amount of unconscious composition, in addition to intentional arrangement. The composed reflection is an expression of how we think we look our best. We may intentionally leave out—unsee—the parts of ourselves we find unacceptable. For women, in particular, the mirror is a well-established site of self-critique in which we compare ourselves with the parameters of acceptable appearance (and try, too often, to meet the beauty standards of the day). Psychological studies also say that looking too long in the mirror can even engender hallucinations, causing one to see monsters, strangers, aliens.

Mirror-gazing has its hazards.

When I give book talks these days (my memoir, Golem Girl, came out in 2020) I often end with an exercise for the audience. I ask them to find two photos on their phones that were taken of them by someone else: one picture that they love, and one they hate but have nevertheless kept. I ask what makes one pleasurable and the other unacceptable. The unacceptable images tend to be described as “ugly” or “weird” or “didn’t look like them.” Most often, that’s because the subject was caught unaware, did not self-compose, and was presented by a view incongruous with their self-schema.

When we are confronted by a reflection that violates our parameters, this may prompt a defense in the form of misrecognition. An uncanny self: the you / not you that disorders self-conception. A picture can make the most intimate thing we own—our bodies—unfamiliar and disconcerting.

Even ordinary photos can be startling: remember, what we see in the mirror is the reverse of what everyone else sees. For me, my hair parts to the left; for everyone else, it falls to the right.

And yet, each audience member has kept both images. It strikes me that together, these comprise the history of figuration. The “acceptable” photo is understood as a self-portrait, while the “disturbing” picture is converted to something like a figure painting. It was kept as the depiction of an event: a wedding, a party, a holiday dinner with family. That photo becomes a story, wherein the subject is just an actor in the tale. Almost invisible to themselves as they subsume into the narrative.

I began making self-portraits many years ago. I was trying to make myself familiar to myself. For much of my life I had avoided looking in mirrors, even to the point of taking off my (very thick) glasses when I walked around so I wouldn’t spy my reflection in random shop windows. This became increasingly insupportable. I only endured because I became invited into the world of disability culture. This offered me a radical re-comprehension of my experiences, and it engendered the desire to understand my own body. I needed to comprehend what people saw when they looked at me. Self-portraits (e.g., 66 Degrees) have helped me to—literally—incorporate myself into myself.

Not that that work is ever settled. I still have a hard time watching footage of myself walking around or being seen from the back. Some things will always pull the old shame in their wake.

But it comforts me to know that we all can become strange to ourselves. And a reminder to me that sometimes my collaborators step into my studio and fall to the uncanny valley, alone.