Duane Michals

Self Portrait with My Guardian Angel, 1974

“My guardian angel’s name is Pete. He was born in 1892 and died in 1931. Pete had been a merchant seaman all his life, and he drowned in the North Sea in a terrible storm. During his lifetime he never became what he might have been. Pete guides me and watches over me.”

The Man Who Invented Himself, 1975

“Everything that he experienced in his life was his invention. He invented his mom and the trees and all things visible and invisible. At the moment he is inventing me writing this and you reading this. Yes, you are his invention. What he thought possible would become possible. What he thought impossible was impossible. But if you told him this, he would not understand and deny it and in the end he would even invent his own death. He would never know that he had invented it all.”