'FREAK SHOW SELF' is a piece about identity, self esteem and little secrets. A self portrait of my torso portrayed in the style of a sideshow billboard. When i was small they found I had an abnormality. It seems that one of my body parts, the ureter tubes had doubled, so instead of two I had four. One wasn't properly connected and I had to have surgery to remove it. They say that happens when you were supposed to be twins but the egg doesn't split completely. At age nine there isn't much worse for your self image than feeling like a candidate for the Mutter Museum, except maybe the two foot long scars on my torso that bear witness. In my clothes, you'd never know about my secret, but to be naked is to bare more than just my skin. This is a piece about the inside, the interior exterior beyond the facade. The torso is painted with a woodgrain to symbolize a stage. One of the woodgrains was left blank to symbolize that which is hidden from me because I was adopted and a medical history I'll never know. The scars are shown as miniature sterling silver barbed wire. Each organ is shown with characters: the keeper of heart that must keep the ball suspended in the air at all times, the kidneys which juggle nutrients and waste, and the three graces of the bladder as apparently there was not room for a fourth, the ureter tubes are shown as aluminum squiggles. The piece is dimensional with several layers built on to a 1 3/4" frame.