Family Portraits: A Trilogy of America (2003)

Blood is thicker than water...

But sometimes...

There's just too much blood...

Cutting Moments (1997)

Marriage unites two people...

Consummation makes the bond between husband and wife official...

The continual reaffirmation of that same commitment between spouses is supposed to be something special...

Supposed to be...

Let that sink in...

And let it sink in deep...

Very deep...

Then tell me...

What does all of this mean to you?

The birth of your first offspring is flooded with a chorus of...

"OMG! Congratulations!"

Everyone on the outside looking in sees your precious new bundle of joy...

First comes love, then comes marriage...

Then comes the baby in the baby carriage, right?

It's perfect...

Picture-perfect...

Portrait-perfect...

Except...

There is no such thing as perfect, is there?

A portrait will only reveal what is aesthetically pleasing...

I mean, why would it reveal anything less?

It wouldn't be much of a portrait otherwise, now would it?

Because behind a husband's and father's smile...

Lies an egregiously disturbing intention...

Behind a wife's and mother's smile...

Lies an excruciating sense of failure...

A tendency toward self-destruction, just to feel relevant within her own household...

Behind a son's smile...

Lies fear...

Trauma...

Anguish...

An overwhelming urgency to be exiled from his own home...

From his own family...

A portrait can paint a thousand words...

But conceal one single lie...

Can you find the lie?

Home (1998)

Most people in this world are products of their own environments...

There may be some exceptions to that rule...

But one way or another, we don't get to choose the circumstances that shape us...

We don't choose our parents...

We don't choose which home we're raised in...

But most of all...

We don't choose our parents' sins for them...

Wow...

Did I just say that???

Did that one cut too deep?

Be careful...

Your portrait is starting to bleed...

Bleed right where you stand...

Because you bled in your past life as a child...

And now...

In your current life as a man...

Those wounds are seeping into the very family you've created...

Prologue (2003)

A man...

A husband...

A father...

A provider...

A...

A...

This particular part of the portrait is the most difficult...

Because with every stroke of an oil-soaked paintbrush...

Lie after lie...

Secret after secret...

Motive after motive...

Each stroke helped sustain the illusion of a happily married couple and their child...

But it was a lie...

All of it...

But the lie looks so beautiful when it's hanging on your bedroom wall...

So every night before you go to bed...

Take a look at that lie...

The one last lie you see before closing your eyes...

Before you know it...

The home within your family portrait...

Begins to transform...

Into a mausoleum...

Happy Thanksgiving Season...