On one level, Faith is a painting of loss, mortality and death--a fugue on time itself. It is a self-portrait of the artist during an extremely difficult and vulnerable period of his life, just after his break-up with Dian Hanson. The artist fills the voids with icons and charms. He presents himself surrounded by several frames made up of artifacts from his extensive Odditorium collection, as though creating a protective barrier of magical devices. The painting is also at the same time a form of self-exposure on an extreme and visceral level. Joe explains when describing this painting: "I can't climb out of the hole I'm in, so I might as well dig myself out..." The act of painting itself a form of digging underneath the surfaces and revealing the irreducible truth of what is behind them.

The painting is a series of holes within holes--in the very center there is even a hole drilled into the painting, symbolic of the ultimate void. "And it always ends the way it begins... from nothing to nothing." The sseven cricles of the painting symbolize to the artist the seven days of the weeks. But there is another way of interpreting the circle as well. It is, as Carl Jung teaches, a sacred, healing symbol. Thus--as in Mommy/Daddy--the portrait does not merely depict Coleman's extreme emotional pain; it also represents the struggle to resolve it.