When Connie Hayes turned sixty-six last year, she started doing a series of self-portraits. It was something of a surprise to a Maine painter who has spent her career focusing on work that is largely comprised of landscapes and still life studies: bucolic French gardens, gridlock in Manhattan, Vinalhaven at dusk.
She did twenty-five drawings, refreshing her knowledge of anatomy and the structural elements of the face. She wasn’t interested in having versions of her own face leave the privacy of her studio but she was neverthe- less invigorated by the exercise. She put out a community-wide call, asking if people would sit for her to have their portraits drawn and, over the months of January and February of this year, Hayes drew one hundred portraits of people throughout the Rockland area.