Brown painted many self-portraits. While all of her paintings were very personal and incorporated into them specific events from her life, her self-portraits made her paintings become even more personal. Not only were they fitting to her life, she also tied her self-portraits into some of her other paintings. She created these series of self-portraits to portray her thoughts and emotions. After her near death experience of swimming across the San Francisco Bay from Alcatraz Island, she painted "After the Alcatraz Swim" in 1975 to help her cope with almost drowning.