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 all real people. No heroes on pedestals. Just like us. Not religious saints, not secular saints. A few icons, maybe, but all real people. That means any one of us […]
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 grade class. For reasons I’m not sure of, I began thinking of this Bible verse: “Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall […]
“To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering.” – Aldo Leopold On reading Jill Lepore’s masterful new history of the United States, These Truths, one cannot overstate the importance of telling a country’s story honestly. For how else – but for all the triumphs, the failures, the ideals, the hypocrisies, […]
AWTT artist Robert Shetterly describes his experience being in the midst of all of his portraits in a major exhibit at Syracuse University.
Recently the Texas board of education decided to remove slavery from its school textbooks. When a story isn’t told, or its truth is altered, it slips from memory, slips from the accumulated identity people internalize by knowing their common history. As strong as the desire is for all of us to deny the worst we […]
“Government actions knowingly and willfully created the climate crisis. From this crisis young and future generations face increasing dangers. As courageous, creative changemakers we have the opportunity and moral authority to change the social, political, and economic structures that cause injustice and climate chaos. Youth are standing up for our fundamental right to inherit a […]
Since I’ve been old enough to vote – 50 years now – I’ve felt, except maybe once or twice, that I was voting for the lesser of evils. That problem was acute in the run up to the 2016 election, and already I’m hearing people say about the 2018 midterm: no matter who it is, […]
While many of us forget, David Swanson urges us to remember. And to do something about it. Swanson reminds us that the war in Afghanistan drags on, even as Americans ignore its ongoing tragedies. And he urges, correctly, our responsibility to end it. 17 Years of Getting Afghanistan Completely Wrongby David SwansonWe expect 17-year-olds to […]
This morning I was listening to a podcast by Bryan Stevenson, a recent AWTT portrait. Many of you know that he and his organization, the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama, recently opened a new museum which tells two stories. One part tells the story of the ongoing systemic transformations of racism in this country, […]
What happened? This was not a protest. It was a clarification. A realignment. It was not an aggrieved victim struggling to have her lonely voice heard as she implores power to hear truth. It was power speaking to power. Legitimate power speaking to illegitimate power. It was a global, universal tweet speaking to an arrogant […]