Rob's Blog

Thomas Jefferson: One Man, Two Legacies
Questions raised by the display of AWTT portraits at Monticello.

The Coronavirus and Why We Have Government
How our government has failed us during the coronavirus epidemic – and a call to action.

George W’s Innocence Project
I’ve got a stone in my shoe. It’s been there for 18 painful years. I can’t seem to accommodate myself to it. Because every so

To Stand Up a Stone
Artist Robert Shetterly contemplates how acts of courage are like standing up stones.

Who Will Save Us from the Climate Crisis?
From Robert Shetterly’s opening address at the Climate Convergence Conference in Blue Hill, Maine on July 20, 2019. I begin with Gauguin’s great painting which

Death of a Warbler
I was sitting at the kitchen table reading Elizabeth Kolbert’s article in The New Yorker (May 20, 2019) about species extinction. Such a litany of

On Getting Arrested at Bath Iron Works
A couple of weeks ago I chose to get arrested at a demonstration at Bath Iron Works (BIW) in Bath, Maine. The day was cold,

How to Think about Frederick Douglass’s Feet of Clay
Not saints, flawed human beings. I’ve told people ever since I began painting the Americans Who Tell the Truth portraits: I don’t paint saints. They’re

Fairness. A Sparrow. A Robin.
I was driving home from the Conners Emerson School in Bar Harbor where I had spent the day with three first grade and one fourth