I cannot go.
I delved into my journal this morning to see if I could pinpoint what I had been thinking while I was making paintings in 2015/2016. I think Michael Brown’s death and Ferguson were still on my mind. I was also dealing with sending my (multiracial, brown-skinned) son out into the world for college, far from home, and worried about that. How could I protect him while he was 800 miles away? The answer of course is that the community needs to protect him. There’s only so much a parent can do.
I can’t go to the protest today. The system needs to change. Change is hard but necessary. We can do this. #BLM. I support change. I’m leaving a link here to my BLM series. You can check the paints out. I hope they take you some place—toward some thought or idea or feeling.
Your Silent Face (A Thought that Never Changes Remains a Stupid Lie), 2013