New Woodcut Responding to Norman Rockwell’s “Freedom from want” 1943

1. How It Started:

• This started from a 30-year observation from living with families who were poor/struggling coupled with 20 years of teaching in lower-socio-economic communities. There was always a gross disparity between rich and poor that bugs me.

2. How I Determined the Narrative Focus:

• After weeks of planning and months of reviewing artworks used as propaganda to manipulate people through false messaging, Norman Rockwell’s 1943 work titled “Freedom from Want” of the “Four Freedoms” series inspired by FDR’s Four Freedoms speech had to be addressed. Initially pitched to the War Department and Office of War Information (rejected) and done for the 𝘚𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘥𝘢𝘺 𝘌𝘷𝘦𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘗𝘰𝘴𝘵, this work was used by the media and the Federal Government to push a false narrative to the public whose lives don’t, won’t, and in some cases can’t look like this. In 1943, the media and US Gov’t wanted to sell us a false reality of what life for people could, and will look like. And, since Trump’s second term, this reality has become even further from attainable.

3. So the questions became:

• How do I convey the message of where we are heading under the 2025 administration?
• How do I create a work that operates as a clear response to his work while at the same time operating as a prediction of what’s to come under this leadership?

4. How it Became a Drawing:

• I knew I had to keep the propaganda poster in tact with the same wording.
• I knew I wanted treat this as a post American-Moral-Apocalypse piece so gas-masks were necessary, especially since the genocide of Palestine is being supported/fueled by the American government.
• The year I am predicting is like Huxley in Brave New World – about 109 years into the future. But in my case, I am predicting 50 years of so. So my future year is 2075.
• Kids would not be affordable to have – so I removed them.
• The elderly don’t live past mid 60’s so they are removed as well.
• The rich would have had to sell their fancy art to survive, so the art is removed from the wall.
• The fine glassware stays, but just water. No food. Now even the rich are living on military rations, but not enough for everyone.

The Challenges:

• Rockwell’s piece plays with masterful work in the white tones, so I’m trying to respect that work and represent it in a woodcut
• Keeping the semblance of light passing through thin linens