My interest in creating portraits of the unidentified came from learning about the case of a living John Doe who went unnamed for almost 50 years. He was found in Jacksonville, Illinois in 1945, deaf and mute, unable to be understood he was put into a mental institution where he languished and was only known as ‘John Doe No. 24.’ His name was later legally changed to 'John Doe Boyd’ to allow him to receive social security, and he was moved to an assisted living center where he died in 1993.

How is it we let people go unknown? I am constantly asking myself what does this say about our society that we let people live or die without their name.

When he was first found he could scrawl a name which people have demented to be ‘Lewis.’ It is presumed this was probably his name, but was it a first name or a last name? In his life many people knew him and enough of his story was known for a short biography of his life to be written, but who he was was never known nor his exact age. It struck me that we could exist without an identity. Besides the obvious questions of who we are and what our identities mean to each of us, I began a journey of looking into more of John Doe No. 24’s story and even spend some long hours pouring over census records in Illinois looking for a ‘Lewis’ over a 5 year birth span who was also recorded as deaf. My search was fruitless, but I felt compelled to make his portrait. That lead into researching other John and Jane Doe cases.