Energy and life

I was looking up other artist's self portraits on the weekend and I came across this one by Sapphire Frater. As she's a living-working artists, as opposed to a dead, mouldering one, I emailed her to ask permission to post this picture and she graciously agreed.
I love it, just love it. It's direct, honest, and it communicates so much about the way she works.
Sapphire mentions Jung and Der Blaue Reiter as some of her influences, which is funny because I was just thinking about synthesism the other day, specifically regarding music and the visual arts. I am a Romanticist in my choice of classical music, and my younger sister has been mailing me CDs to listen to while I'm working. When I'm drawing or painting I admit to not being able to 'hear' the music playing in the background, but it is there, and I'm sure it has an effect, because sometimes I'll take it into my head that the music is all wrong, leap up and change the CD. Something is definitely going on there.