Something is Broken

Disunity. There's something to ponder! When the theme was announced my internal response went directly to the current state of things here in the U.S. Our president, his policies, his actions and words and the resulting changes in our lives has me in constant horror, anger, grief and disgust. "Disunity" is what we live with daily. "How does this feel?" I asked myself. "How does one represent this graphically?"

It is as if something has broken. Something good. Something useful. Something beautiful. And that same feeling one feels, when a treasured object slips from your grasp, crashing to the floor--that clench in the gut, that intake of breath that immediate wish to step back in time a few seconds to hold on more closely to what you just heedlessly allowed to get away from you--that is the feeling I feel almost daily as I read or hear about yet another dismal break in what I always believed were "our" values.

If you look closely in the patchwork background you will see words--"families", "trust", "promises", "hearts"... They represent babies, separated from their mothers, locked in cages, hatred toward immigrants, racism, sexism, violence toward each other, broken treaties and alliances and on and on. This was a hard piece to make. Normally my artwork and my studio are my refuge from the awfulness, but it was strangely satisfying to face it in this way and make a statement that not all will agree with. I am resolved to continue to resist the current agenda and, broken though my peace may be, my resolve will NOT be broken.