Story behind "We Said Black Lives Matter" (2nd painting below)
I received an email in June of 2020 announcing that the New Art Center, where I had been taking classes for several years, was sponsoring a competition with the theme of racial justice. I knew right away that I wanted to submit an entry because racial justice has been a very important issue in my life since I was very young. With only a week until the deadline, time was ticking by and I still hadn’t come up with an idea. One day, a friend showed me a photo of a young girl carrying a Black Lives Matter sign at a Boston neighborhood demonstration. It was a protest of the murder of George Floyd at the hands of four Minneapolis, Minnesota police officers a few months before on May 25. That photo became my inspiration.
Along with 50 other works by other artists, my painting, “We Said Black Lives Matter” was chosen to appear in the New Art Center’s online exhibit, Peaceful Protest Posters, which ran from July 17- August 31, 2020. The New Art Center’s announcement of the exhibit under the “Exhibition” tab on their website read: “Peaceful Posters have been visual icons for social justice and have served as a call to action for societal change.” The curator of the show, Ibrahim Ali-Salaam, in my opinion, is also an amazingly gifted artist. To me, his rendering of the human form is reminiscent of Michelangelo’s work.
The Black Lives Matter movement began in 2012 with the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin. The movement grew nationally in 2014 after the deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and Eric Garner in New York. And then the movement went global with the murder of George Floyd because a young female bystander captured the event in a video she took on her cell phone. The killing lasted a full 10 minutes and 8 seconds. In an unprecedented trial, the four police officers were brought to justice. Derek Michael Chauvin was found guilty of second-degree manslaughter. On June 25, 2021, twenty-three million people watched on television as the judge sentenced him to 22 1/2 years in prison. On February 24, 2022, the other three officers, Alexander Keung, Kieran Lane and Tou Thai, were convicted of willfully violating Floyd’s constitutional rights by not providing medical care when he lost a pulse. Keung and Thao were also found guilty of failing to stop Chauvin from using unreasonable force.
Tim Walz, who became the 2024 Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate in August 2024, was Governor of Minnesota at the time of the murder of George Floyd. He has always been and continues to be a proud gun-owner and hunter as well as a proponent of the Second Amendment. He used to support the National Rifle Association (NRA), and for that, the NRA gave him an A-rating, and rewarded his political campaigns with endorsements and donations. But, he had a change of heart in 2018 and began supporting gun safety measures as a result of the mass shooting that took place at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Two weeks after the shooting, while campaigning for governor, Walz authored an op-ed in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, where he called the NRA “the biggest single obstacle to passing the most basic measures to prevent gun violence in America.” He went on to write that he would no longer accept contributions from the NRA. He took the $18,000 that the NRA had contributed to his past campaigns and donated the money to the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund, an organization that serves US military personnel suffering the effects of traumatic brain injuries, post-traumatic stress, and other severe injuries. Because of the George Floyd murder, Walz signed into law “The Police Accountability Act” which includes bans on chokeholds and neck restraints and requirements that police try to stop fellow officers from using improper force. Since 2018 he has passed many wide-ranging gun safety laws. For more extensive descriptions of those laws, see the August 9, 2024 article in The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/aug/09/tim-walz-gun-control-stance . “In the first few weeks of her campaign, the NRA called the Democratic presidential candidate, Kamala Harris, ‘an existential threat to the second amendment.’ That doesn’t seem to bother Walz. On July 27, 2024, he tweeted: ‘I had an A rating from the NRA. Now I get straight F’s. And I sleep just fine.’”
I received an email in June of 2020 announcing that the New Art Center, where I had been taking classes for several years, was sponsoring a competition with the theme of racial justice. I knew right away that I wanted to submit an entry because racial justice has been a very important issue in my life since I was very young. With only a week until the deadline, time was ticking by and I still hadn’t come up with an idea. One day, a friend showed me a photo of a young girl carrying a Black Lives Matter sign at a Boston neighborhood demonstration. It was a protest of the murder of George Floyd at the hands of four Minneapolis, Minnesota police officers a few months before on May 25. That photo became my inspiration.
Along with 50 other works by other artists, my painting, “We Said Black Lives Matter” was chosen to appear in the New Art Center’s online exhibit, Peaceful Protest Posters, which ran from July 17- August 31, 2020. The New Art Center’s announcement of the exhibit under the “Exhibition” tab on their website read: “Peaceful Posters have been visual icons for social justice and have served as a call to action for societal change.” The curator of the show, Ibrahim Ali-Salaam, in my opinion, is also an amazingly gifted artist. To me, his rendering of the human form is reminiscent of Michelangelo’s work.
The Black Lives Matter movement began in 2012 with the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin. The movement grew nationally in 2014 after the deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and Eric Garner in New York. And then the movement went global with the murder of George Floyd because a young female bystander captured the event in a video she took on her cell phone. The killing lasted a full 10 minutes and 8 seconds. In an unprecedented trial, the four police officers were brought to justice. Derek Michael Chauvin was found guilty of second-degree manslaughter. On June 25, 2021, twenty-three million people watched on television as the judge sentenced him to 22 1/2 years in prison. On February 24, 2022, the other three officers, Alexander Keung, Kieran Lane and Tou Thai, were convicted of willfully violating Floyd’s constitutional rights by not providing medical care when he lost a pulse. Keung and Thao were also found guilty of failing to stop Chauvin from using unreasonable force.
Tim Walz, who became the 2024 Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate in August 2024, was Governor of Minnesota at the time of the murder of George Floyd. He has always been and continues to be a proud gun-owner and hunter as well as a proponent of the Second Amendment. He used to support the National Rifle Association (NRA), and for that, the NRA gave him an A-rating, and rewarded his political campaigns with endorsements and donations. But, he had a change of heart in 2018 and began supporting gun safety measures as a result of the mass shooting that took place at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Two weeks after the shooting, while campaigning for governor, Walz authored an op-ed in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, where he called the NRA “the biggest single obstacle to passing the most basic measures to prevent gun violence in America.” He went on to write that he would no longer accept contributions from the NRA. He took the $18,000 that the NRA had contributed to his past campaigns and donated the money to the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund, an organization that serves US military personnel suffering the effects of traumatic brain injuries, post-traumatic stress, and other severe injuries. Because of the George Floyd murder, Walz signed into law “The Police Accountability Act” which includes bans on chokeholds and neck restraints and requirements that police try to stop fellow officers from using improper force. Since 2018 he has passed many wide-ranging gun safety laws. For more extensive descriptions of those laws, see the August 9, 2024 article in The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/aug/09/tim-walz-gun-control-stance . “In the first few weeks of her campaign, the NRA called the Democratic presidential candidate, Kamala Harris, ‘an existential threat to the second amendment.’ That doesn’t seem to bother Walz. On July 27, 2024, he tweeted: ‘I had an A rating from the NRA. Now I get straight F’s. And I sleep just fine.’”
Inauguration,
January 20, 2021,
watercolor, 4 7/8 x 6 3/4; Card © 2021. This painting has been recognized twice: One of four runner-ups in the NCE (Newton Community Education) Fall 2021 Catalogue cover contest. Chosen to hang in non-Covid real space/ time at Newton, MA's New Art Center's Trio Gallery "Creative Process - the Andrew and Jean Dibner Annual Student and Faculty Show," 1 1/1 5/2021-1/1 /2022. 
The Peace Bomber, 2009,
Watercolor, 5 1/2”x 7 1/4"; Card © 2022. |
AWARD WINNER!
Won Placement in Online Exhibit at the New Art Center Peaceful Protest Posters: Online Exhibition Poster is in the 6th row, the Second from the Left We Said Black Lives Matter, July 2020 watercolor, 5 1/2 x 6 5/8; Card © 2021. The image on this card is one of 55 works of art chosen for placement in the "Peaceful Protest Posters: Online Exhibition," July 17- August 31, 2020. The curator of the show was Ibrahim Ali-Salaam, and a response to all senseless acts of violence against African Americans, the exhibit was also a response to the recent Brutal Assassination of African American, George Floyd on May 25, 2020 which lasted a full 10 minutes 8 seconds according to Wikipedia in its 1 1/25/2021 edition. video taken by a young female bystander recorded this Senseless Act as it was being committed at the hands of four members of the Minneapolis, Minnesota Police Department. The case has been and continues to be litigated numerous times. Among them are the following: One member, now former Police Officer Derek Michael Chauvin, was found guilty by a jury of his peers of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. On June 25, 2021, Chauvin was sentenced to 22.5 years in prison for the second-degree murder. Twenty-three million people watched the announcement of the verdict on live television. On February 24, 2022, the jury found all three other officers- J. Alexander Keung, Thomas Kiernan Lane and Tou Thao- guilty on all counts faced at trial. All three officers were convicted of willfully violating Floyd's constitutional rights by not providing medical care when he lost a pulse. Keung and Thao were also found guilty of failing to intervene to stop Chauvin from using unreasonable force. The New Art Center's website 'Exhibition' tab reads: "Peaceful Posters have been visual icons for social justice and have served as a call to action for societal change." |
The War in Lebanon, 2006,
Watercolor, watercolor crayons, handmade papers,
5 1/2” x 7”; Card © 2022.
Watercolor, watercolor crayons, handmade papers,
5 1/2” x 7”; Card © 2022.
The Blue Wave on a warm November afternoon,
November 6, 2020, Watercolor, 5 1/2” x 8 1/2”; Card © 2022. |
Social Justice and Its Enemies, 1982,
graphic, 5 1/2 x 8 1/2; Card © 2021. |