Recent events have made me want to bring the political into my art again. No, that's not quite accurate—not politics but civil rights. I foolishly never thought we would have to fight some battles over again but, like many of my friends and colleagues and likeminded believers in government that actually works for people, I underestimated the one-note determination of the fascists (I will no longer call them the"right," since they never are) to burn the house down to get what they want. We should have seen it coming during the fateful confirmation hearings for the so-called Supreme Court. And those of us actually
in government, with some kind of power and privilege, should have shut it down when Kavanaugh was revealed as an abuser and a drunkard and Coney-Barrett as a religious nut-job. But no one did, and here we are.
I don't know how long it will take, this time, to right these injustices. Optimists say one election cycle in which only Democrats win their races; pessimists say generations will pass. I am old enough not to expect to see too many more generations, but I am also old enough to know that things do change, eventually—the pendulum swings. So my plan is to stand up, and keep going. Join me, won't you?
"Keep Going"—gesso, acrylics, charcoal, stencils, on birch board, 14x11 inches, again in the method of Florence Lee.
