Defining Who We Are

A unique exhibit where words are as important as photos

My Defining Ourselves exhibit will soon be in its third showing but this time in Baltimore.

For two years, I challenged people to answer the question, "How do you define yourself?’" The answer had to be just one sentence beginning with the words, ‘I am.’” Answers were followed by defining portrait photos. I received nearly 100 responses from people ages 4 to 100, representing more than a dozen countries.

Selected photos from this project will be shown at the Light Gallery located at 1015 N. Charles St. from January 15 – March 12

Opening Reception: January 15th from 7-9 pm with jazz musician Kevin Robinson

Closing Reception: March 12th from 7-9 pm featuring an artist talk by Bonnie Schupp and live music

See this video for a preview without the words. Turn on your sound. Put your cursor over the picture and then to the right below the picture, and click on HQ for High Quality (high resolution) to see it at its best:

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Below are some quotations on the theme of knowing who we are that you might find thought provoking:

Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind. ~ Dr. Seuss

Find out who you are, and do it on purpose. (?)

Until you make peace with who you are, you'll never be content with what you have. ~ Doris
Martman

Know, first, who you are; and then adorn yourself accordingly. ~ Epictetus, Roman (Greek-born) slave & Stoic philosopher (55 AD - 135 AD)

Be what you are. This is the first step toward becoming better than you are. ~ Julius Charles Hare

Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you." ~ Thomas Jefferson ?

You were born an original. Don't die a copy. ~ John Mason

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting. ~e.e. cummings, 1955

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. ~Kurt Vonnegut

We don't know who we are until we see what we can do. ~ Martha Grimes

When you know who you truly are, there is an abiding alive sense of peace. You could call it joy because that's what joy is: vibrantly alive peace. (?)

It is the joy of knowing yourself as the very life essence before life takes on form. That is the joy of Being - of being who you truly are. ~ Stillness Speaks, Eckhart Tolle

All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was. I accepted their answers too, though they were often in contradiction and even self-contradictory. I was naïve. I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer. It took me a long time and much painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have been born with: that I am nobody but myself. ~ Battle Royal, Ralph Ellison

Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else. ~Judy Garland

I am told to just be myself, but as much as I have practiced the impression, I am still no good at it. ~Robert Brault

It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are. ~ e.e. cummings

I think of life itself now as a wonderful play that I've written for myself, and so my purpose is to have the utmost fun playing my part. ~ Shirley MacLaine

Wherever you go, go with all your heart. ~ Confucius

Let the world know you as you are, not as you think you should be, because sooner or later, if you are posing, you will forget the pose, and then where are you? ~ Fanny Brice

Every time you don't follow your inner guidance, you feel a loss of energy, loss of power, a sense of spiritual deadness. ~ Shakti Gawain

Originality is... a by-product of sincerity. ~ Marianne Moore

All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own. ~ Johann von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther, 1774