What is held is not the person, but a moment of expression compressed into a perpetual now. Presence is captured, not encountered. Much of our lives are lived this way, as past and future consume most of our personal chronology - even within the present moment, when we fail to pay attention.

This painting can be interpreted from a figurative and literal perspective, both of which make sense through the means of a painting. This is possible since the painting is both an object and a representation of an object.

Nothing dramatic has occurred; everything has simply accumulated. The day records itself in the body, and time collapses into a single gesture of lost structure. Some days, life is mundane, unheroic, and quietly brutal.

Ducks are clumsy. Ducks can fly. Ducks have a will of their own. No one ever really tells you that.