Choices

 I made no secret, all year, of the fact that Joe Biden was not my first choice for President. I initially had high hopes this was the election that would give us our first woman president, and I wanted her to be Elizabeth Warren. But the primary process wended its inevitable way towards the winnowing, and eventually it became clear that Biden was going to be our guy, like it or not. At first, I didn't, much; I thought he was too old, too centrist, too connected, too set in his ways to do the kinds of things that need doing right now in these United States if we are going to overcome the disastrous double fallout of the Trump administration and the Covid-19 pandemic. But with his selection of Kamala Harris as his vice president and his strong, steady, and resolute demeanor since the election, I have substantially shifted my attitude and now believe that he may indeed be the person best suited to be in office at this moment.

One of the things that has most reassured me has been his thoughtful and surprisingly innovative appointments to certain offices, the best of which has been the designation of New Mexico's U.S. Representative Deb Haaland as our next Secretary of the Interior. The 60-year-old congresswoman will be the first Native American cabinet secretary ever when she takes office next month; where better to place her than in charge of the country's land and natural resources, as well as making her the primary negotiator of treaty obligations between the tribes and the U.S. government, not previously famous for keeping its promises to indigenous peoples. Referencing the past four years of devastating environmental rollbacks, Haaland said in her acceptance speech, "I'll be fierce for all of us, for our planet and for our protected land." As long as Biden keeps appointing women like this to public office, I know we will be all right.

Since I'm giving Uncle Joe props, you'd think I'd be painting him, but let's face it, Deb Haaland is a more deserving subject of a portrait, given the disregard shown to indigenous women, to women of color, to women period, in this man's world. So here is my impression of a fierce but smiling advocate for the sacred lands that many of us who are not indigenous also hold dear.

Daler Rowney inks, pencil, Uniball pen, watercolors, India ink, white Signo gel pen, on 140-lb. Fluid watercolor paper, 9x12 inches.