Portrait of my wife Angela with her red star (Che Guevera) hat. This is similar to the first portrait I made of her with the same hat. The work is an allegory for her strong, independent persona and her work on behalf of social justice. It is also a half serious reference to the "People's Republic of Eugene" as our town is sometimes called because of its anti-war, peace, and iconoclastic nature. Angela is a "Berner", i.e. supporter of Bernie Sanders and both of us were active in his 2016 campaign. But the painting is truly unique in that the colors, brushstrokes, and treatment of light on the face are new and innovative. My fusion of realism and abstraction, in my opinion, makes the painting "more real" than atelier realism that has become academic and stale. My portraits, on the other hand, examples of my "American verismo" strike out on a new road, a new direction, a deepening cognition of the "face as window to the soul" but produced through careful observation and sensitivity to the subject, in this case my wife, yet retaining feeling, poetry, and warmth.