Tag: politics

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 FDRโ€™s Four Freedoms speech had to be addressed. Initially pitched to the War Department and Office of War Information (rejected) and done for the ๐˜š๐˜ข๐˜ต๐˜ถ๐˜ณ๐˜ฅ๐˜ข๐˜บ ๐˜Œ๐˜ท๐˜ฆ๐˜ฏ๐˜ช๐˜ฏ๐˜จ ๐˜—๐˜ฐ๐˜ด๐˜ต, 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 โ€“ 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 โ€“ so I removed them.
  • The elderly donโ€™t live past mid 60โ€™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:

  • Rockwellโ€™s piece plays with masterful work in the white tones, so Iโ€™m trying to respect that work and represent it in a woodcut
  • Keeping the semblance of light passing through thin linens
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New Woodcut Addressing Women’s Reproductive Rights

1. How It Started:

  • This started from a Resistance call from Planned Parenthood.

2. How I Determined the Narrative Focus:

  • I did a lot of research into current legal issues, laws, circumstances regarding female reproductive rights in the U.S.A. today. I also read the book Policing the Womb by Michele Goodwin.
  • As I came upon a massive amount of information I had to narrow it down to what I wanted to express. For me, the piece had to be about resisting current governmental policies, legal decisions/actions, and definitely holding hospitals accountable for their part in the issues.
  • As time went on for the next 3 months I determined the work would have the following aspects: Pregnant woman as center point, hospital that denied a woman critical care in California, a resist fist, the 9 star American flag, drones, and a title I was not clear on.
  • So, the questions that came to mind were:
    • Do I go with what I felt was needed and be aggressive in my messaging, or do I play it safer and try to make this more marketable?
    • How do I push and advance myself with this?

 3. How it Became a Drawing:

  • Pregnant Women= I had to sketch a woman in a new way that completely put the focal point on the baby she was carrying. She had to appear distressed.
  • I took a picture of the Providence St. Joseph Catholic Hospital in Ca where they refused to help a woman and gave her a bucket and towels instead. I had to position it so it reflected that the woman was just denied care there as she stood lost out front.
  • I wanted to add foreboding clouds in the background but I wanted to do them in a more abstract way. Purely representational.
  • The American Flag with 9 stars would hold the word โ€œRESISTโ€ to highlight the need to not only resist what is happening, but so too the Confederate attitude Trump is pushing (9 star flag represents the 9 original states to secede).
  • The drones would be my vision of where we are heading. The drones now monitor pregnant woman. Total loss of privacy and control.
  • THE BANNER hanging from the building would also be a vision into the future where there are things I am forecasting to exist such as:
    • H.A.R.R.T = Hospital Against Reproductive Rights & Treatment
    • F.P.A. = Fetal Protection Agency

The rest of the text would be laws that exist or have been pushed that are pivotal laws restricting womenโ€™s rights to reproductive rights/choice.

4. ๐ˆ๐๐๐Ž๐•๐€๐“๐ˆ๐Ž๐๐’:

a) Shattered glass cut style (over 1,000 cuts in one window)

b) 1/3 of block cut in my style “Free Cutting” (no drawing to guide me)

c) Stucco texture created through intentional pick-up cut style

d) New representational cloud style

5. ๐—ฆ๐˜๐—ฟ๐—ผ๐—ป๐—ด ๐—จ๐˜€๐—ฒ ๐—ผ๐—ณ ๐—ง๐—ต๐—ฒ๐˜€๐—ฒ ๐—–๐˜‚๐˜ ๐—ฆ๐˜๐˜†๐—น๐—ฒ๐˜€ ๐—œ ๐—ฎ๐—บ ๐—ง๐—ฟ๐˜†๐—ถ๐—ป๐—ด ๐˜๐—ผ ๐—–๐—ผ๐—ถ๐—ป:

– Chatter cut – hold handle looser and let blade chatter as it cuts

– Glancing cut – hold tight on handle, keep pressure light and barely touching the block, and quickly glance the blade across the block.

– Grazing cut – hold handle tight, very focused, set line depth light, and firmly cut.

๐—”๐—ฏ๐—ผ๐˜‚๐˜ ๐—ง๐—ต๐—ถ๐˜€ ๐—ฃ๐—ฟ๐—ถ๐—ป๐˜: This RESIST print addresses current issues regarding women’s reproductive rights as well as my prediction of the future if we do not resist now. The woman is being forced to carry her pregnancy. Her every step is policed by drones. Her body criminalized. If we do not resist with like strength and fortitude, I predict a world where Hospitals will support H.A.R.R.T. & F.P.A. (Hospitals Against Reproductive Rights & Treatment and the Fertilization Protection Agency) where they refuse treatment and enforce Ca, Texas, and Louisiana bills such as SB 8, Act 548, HB 813, Trap Laws and more that force women to keep children against their will. We MUST RESIST now!!

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