Since I sold the finished version of this painting at an auction a while back, I have received—this is not an exaggeration—roughly 34 separate emails asking some variation of:

“Bro were you trying to paint my grandpa?”

or

“Is that Bernie Sanders?”

The answer is: YES.

Or no.

What I can tell you is that I was attempting to paint the universal human experience of gratitude and somehow accidentally produced a man who looks like he has very strong opinions about both Medicare and how much rain we got at the cabin this year.

I have decided not to investigate further.

Some mysteries are diminished by answers.

Was he modeled after somebody’s grandfather? Is he Bernie? Is Bernie somebody’s grandfather? Is this simply the face gratitude assumes after age 67 when it has finally stopped caring what anybody thinks?

We cannot know.

Art history will have to decide.

“Thank You”
36×36 Oil on Canvas