Artist Statement 

Within my mind mine exists a database of faces.  The art of graphically retrieving these mind faces transforms them into MinedFaces.

For as long as I can remember I have been fascinated by the diversity of human faces.  I was in the first grade in parochial school when I first became aware that strange faces were flipping around inside of my head.  I knew that I had seen each face somewhere before, but I was not aware that they were significantly different from my other memories.  I first detected their presence while playing a game of Hide and Seek.  When I pressed my hands against my eyes while counting to one hundred, faces seemed to appear out of nowhere.  I had no idea how they got there or what they were doing inside of my head.  Later I learned that if I looked at a wall, or other flat surface,     I could view them with my eyes open.  They flipped quickly and randomly, and I never knew what face might appear next.  They seemed to flip by like racing penguins on a water slide.  If a particular face looked interesting           I would pause it, and stare at it until it faded.  Sometimes a face would superimpose on top of another and both would blend into a single face.  These double images soon became my favorites.  Some of the faces were so frightening I was afraid to look at them.  Clowns, dead cats, creepy people, and bogeymen made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.  Usually I skipped over those, and hoped they wouldn't flip by again.  However, most of the faces I liked and I spent a lot of time looking at them, especially in class. The nuns were not pleased.  They told my mother I was a daydreamer.  She was upset with me, but I continued to look at the faces.  I was frequently bored in class, and I thought that the flipping slide show was more interesting than most of the things the sisters talked about.

Around this time of childhood discovery, I also became entranced by the joys of sugar, and this caused a dramatic change in me.  I went from being an introspective daydreamer to a hyper kid, running around the classroom being disruptive and annoying.  I gave the nuns a hard time and it was difficult for them to control me.  I attempted to do everything super fast, and I ran everywhere I could.  I thought sugar was the greatest thing ever and I craved anything that tasted sweet.  Candy and granulated sugar were my favorites, followed by molasses, ice cream, and chocolate covered anything.  When passing a sugar bowl I could not resist eating two, or even three, heaping spoonfuls.  With six children in our family, my sugar habit often went unnoticed.  I sometimes took sugar cubes to school, hiding them in my pockets or socks.  I once drank a full jar of molasses in one go.  My legs and knees were frequently black and blue because I was always trying to jump over things that were in my way. I was talkative, prone to act up, and a busybody in class.  The nuns said I was incourigable.  I was always getting in trouble and my parents were constantly mad at me.  I did not like school at all, except for recess.

One day I was taken from my desk and sat on a small wooden stool behind a wire umbrella stand. The stand looked much like the springs inside of a box spring mattress, except higher.  The nun that was teaching our class had dragged it from our cloakroom and placed it in front of a recessed door in the back of the class.  The area behind the stand was about three feet square.  For the remainder of the school year, and half of the next, the space behind this wire barrier was to be my area of confinement during the periods when I was being especially annoying.  Depending upon the circumstances, I could be in there for an hour, a day, or longer.  In the beginning I liked my private cage, and I received a lot of attention because of it.  But as the weeks turned into months, the other kids looked around less and less.  The following year I repeated the first grade.

About half way through the first grade, for the second time, I paused one of the flipping faces while staring at a blank piece of white paper.  The face seemed to be projected onto the surface of the paper, and this image appeared much sharper than usual.  Drawing with my pencil, I began to darken in the light areas with squiggly lines.  I quickly realized that I was copying the face onto the piece of paper.  When I was finished it looked a lot like the face in my head.  I was surprised at what I had done.  I continued looking at it all day in class.  I was pleased because now other people could see the same faces I saw.  Although I was not aware of it at the time, I had gone into my mind mine and mined my very first face.  I showed it to my friends, and carried it around in my pocket until it wore away.  The nun told the class I was an artist.  I was very proud.

I soon became fascinated with the art of mining faces, and could not get enough of it.  The nuns were delighted with my new talent because this was a better way for me to direct my excess energy.  It was also a benefit to the class.  Instead of cutting up and being a general nuisance, I became calmer, and more productive.  I enjoyed showing my classmates the strange faces that were flipping around inside of my head.  Sometime later the umbrella stand was pushed back into the cloakroom for good, and I was allowed to sit at a real desk again.  I listened to things that were discussed, completed most class assignments, and did my homework.  So as long as I looked busy and was not disruptive, I was allowed to sit in the back of the class and draw.  I much appreciated this new arrangement, and I thought that the world of art was a great place to be involved in.  Using a pencil, I transformed my mind faces into Mined Faces in small pads that I carried around in my pocket.  That pocket became my first portfolio, and our classroom my first studio.  For the next few years, school was much better.  I was pleased with my growing collection of faces and content with my unspoken status.  Life in those days was about as good as it gets.  Then, in the fifth grade, everything changed.

As was the custom at our school, the boys entering the fifth grade were separated from the girls.  The boys were moved to the other half of the school to be taught by the brothers for the next four years, while the fifth grade girls remained with the sisters.  Most of my classmates were excited to be taught by the brothers, but I was not.  I was unhappy about the loss of my studio,      I missed the girls, and the brothers were much tougher than the sisters.  Also, they hit a lot harder.  They would not let me sit in the back of the class, or draw during class time.  I could not read whenever I felt like it, and they made me do many other things that I did not want to do.

But there were some good moments... sports, recess, lunch, and summer vacation were lots of fun.  The final half hour of each Friday afternoon was my favorite class time.  We were each given a clean sheet of white paper and told we could draw anything we liked.  I drew many of the same things as my classmates, like army tanks, cowboys, knights, and airplanes, but no mined faces.  I guess I did not want the other kids to think I was weird, or maybe     I just wanted to show that I could draw those other things too.  Perhaps I thought it was time to fit in like the others and not stand out.  Whatever the reason, I did not mine another face for over fifty years.

Then a few years ago, while attending a boring function, I looked inside my mind mine.  It had grown exponentially and the faces looked more diverse than ever.  Thousands of faces flipped by so fast they made me dizzy.            I paused one of them, borrowed a pen, and quickly copied it onto a paper napkin.  I thought it looked like the face in my head.  I was surprised at what I had done, and continued looking at it until the function was over.  I showed it to my family and a few friends.  I carried it around in my pocket until it wore away. 

I have since returned to visiting my mind mine on a regular basis.  My portfolios are growing once again, and I continue to mine the faces that occupy a space within my consciousness.  Looking back, I consider my early days in parochial school an apprenticeship of sorts, and I am grateful that I was given the opportunity to graphically mine faces. 

If educated in another era, I would probably have been treated differently.  In today's world I might have been diagnosed with an attention deficit disorder and treated accordingly.  Having said that, I remain confident that my educators did what they thought was best for me, and despite the cage,          I harbor no grievances. 

In 1964 my first car, a 1951 Chevrolet, was stolen from a friend's driveway.  In the trunk were four large portfolios stuffed with artwork, mostly Mined Faces. The car and my portfolios were never recovered. The Mined Faces existing today have all been created since 2005.

Bernard F. O'Gara Sr.