Artwork / Archives / Snow Days / Joe Sottile (KGW)

painted portrait of a white man with white hair and a white mustache
Gwenn Seemel
Joe Sottile (KGW)
2004
acrylic on canvas
36 x 24 inches

I went to high school with Joe’s kids. It was this lucky coincidence that made Snow Days possible, because people who work in front of the television news camera tend to be careful with their images. Joe was my character reference, and he is the only reason why anyone agreed to be painted. In the years after Snow Days when I was still living and working in Oregon, the series as a whole ended up acting as a character reference in the situations where I was working with strangers, including this man.