Portrait of Lee

This was a portrait of Lee Kohn, when I worked at USGS. Private collection.

When all the masks align just right,
you can see right through all of them,
through oil paint, through social calm,
through guardedness, grief...there is
someone there, looking right at me,
the one who, thinking that without the masks
there'd be nothing, makes the masks
interesting. This face wants to know
why I am looking at it this way,
knows, knows I know. There are
no masks.

Dean Blehert

Last Updated: October 6, 2002