Self-portraits during my illness : pictorial diary, 1975 Jan.-Oct.

A diary comprised almost entirely of near-daily self-portraits made over the course of several months during which the San Francisco artist and printmaker was suffering from depression. Van Hoesen notes that her illness was "chronic endogenous depressions / also diagnosed as atypical polar manic depression," and explains the motivation for keeping the diary: "I have found it almost impossible to describe in words to my doctors or my friends how I have felt during this illness so I decided to use my own medium to try and convey a record of my up and down feelings. I was unable to draw in the six months preceding these drawings. I had to force myself to draw many of these--As a professional artist I found none of them up to my standards as works of art."