Post 2016 Election: The Eagle & the Swamp

images 1 to 3 of 10
images 1 to 3 of 10
  Post 2016 Election: The Eagle & the Swamp 1
Post-Election 2016 Series

November 7, 2016, yellow oil paint marked a 24x30 canvas, first painting since February 2015 when the presidential candidates rolled out their campaigns. The upcoming battle between greed/hate/indifference and respect/compassion for life was underway and the painter in me withdrew from oils, turning to the words said and inspired by the writers and interviewees at www.MilwaukeeRenaissance.com/PeaceOfMind/
Saturday after the election, three friends, 7, 23 and 33, joined me in the studio to paint. I’d studied the markings on canvas and had pretty much concluded that a dog’s eyes were looking at me. The next thing I knew, per the usual process, a woman, maybe a man, another androgynous person, looked back at me. The colors my spirit chose sight unseen were red and blue.

I needed time to absorb the portrait until it called me back and set it aside; since my friends were busily working on their own art, I found a canvas gessoed in black over the textures of an angel who never came to conclusion. “Post-Election 2016 #2 began in cerulean blue oil, energy rushing through my hands, releasing the color in a few quick unchartered movements. As these works slowly evolved, I stroked brushes dry on another 24x30 canvas, which became Post Election 2016 # 3: Resistance Rising, after a friend saw in it an American eagle with a broken wing when we flipped the vertical to a horizontal view.

"Be optimistic, but cautiously optimistic," Rev. Willie E. Brisco said about the rise in justice activists after 45 was elected.

In the two years preceding the election of 2016, I produced only two works in each: “The 1 Percent” and “The Rest of Us” in 2015. And in 2014, “Genocide 2014: USA 1865 to Present” and “Genocide 2014: USA 1971 to Present.” These works were inspired by working with concerned citizens to elect an incorruptible man as president of the Milwaukee Branch NAACP, and interviewing the founding pastors of MICAH, Milwaukee Innercity Congregations Allied for Hope, as well as MICAH president 2011-14.
What is fundamental to remember as 2017 moves forward with the new USA president, a man who disregards others and the environment -- a known prevaricating predator, is the roar of protestors marching in cities around the world the day after he swore to uphold the American Constitution on President Lincoln’s bible, as if to wipe out the fingerprints of the great president who came before him. The contrast between the two is black and white.