On the evening of August 8, 2024, Americans Who Tell the Truth (AWTT), Bethel Area Arts & Music (BAAM) and The Gem theater hosted the unveiling of artist Robert Shetterly’s portrait of Bethel, Maine resident,  Inaugural Poet, and Poet Laureate Richard Blanco. Another highlight of the evening was Blanco reading selections of his poetry.

Blanco and Shetterly captivated the audience with their conversation ranging from the arts to activism to the state of the world. Quoting playwright Arthur Miller, Shetterly said, “I think the job of the artist is to remind people what they have chosen to forget. . . . Your work does that.” Expressing equal admiration for Shetterly’s art, Blanco said, “You totally captured my soul—with all it’s joys, concerns, humility . . .” Obviously enjoying their discussion as much as the audience was, Blanco commented that he “. . . loved the conversation, so organic, authentic, meaningful, and friendly.”

The two artists hope to collaborate on some more public events in the future, so stay tuned.

Richard Blanco

Selected by President Obama as the fifth Presidential Inaugural Poet in U.S. history, Richard Blanco was the youngest, the first Latinx, immigrant, and gay person to serve in that role. In 2023, Blanco was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Biden from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Born in Madrid to Cuban exile parents and raised in Miami in a working-class family, Blanco’s personal negotiation of cultural identity and the universal themes of place and belonging characterize Blanco’s many collections of poetry, including his most recent, Homeland of My Body, which reassess traditional notions of home as strictly a geographical, tangible place that merely exist outside us, but rather, within us. He has also authored the memoirs For All of Us, One Day: An Inaugural Poet’s Journey and The Prince of Los Cocuyos: A Miami Childhood.

Blanco has received numerous awards, including the Agnes Starrett Poetry Prize, the PEN American Beyond Margins Award, the Patterson Prize, and a Lambda Prize for memoir. He was Woodrow Wilson Fellow and has received numerous honorary degrees.  Currently, he serves as Education Ambassador for The Academy of American Poets and is an Associate Professor at Florida International University.  In April 2022, Blanco was appointed the first-ever Poet Laureate of Miami-Dade County.

Americans Who Tell the Truth

Blanco’s portrait joined the over 270 portraits that Robert Shetterly has painted as part of the American Who Tell the Truth series.  Americans Who Tell the Truth (AWTT)  uses the power of art to illuminate the ongoing struggle to realize America’s democratic ideals and model the commitment to work for the common good. AWTT believes that a profound understanding of citizenship is the only safeguard of democracy and the best defense of social, racial, economic, and environmental justice. AWTT’s portraits have been exhibited across the United States in universities, churches, schools, community centers, museums, galleries, and government offices.

AWTT has a wide range of educational and community offerings. From elementary schools to graduate programs, AWTT’s mission is to use its more than 270 portraits of courageous activists as learning opportunities that encourage everyone to become engaged citizens as they address issues of social, environmental, and economic justice. AWTT offers workshops, speaking engagements, and lesson plans, and encourages schools, universities, and communities to host portrait exhibits and to engage in its education programs. AWTT offers lessons and themed exhibits around environmental justice, civil rights, the media, indigenous issues, women’s rights, and much more.

The AWTT project was incorporated as a 501(c)(3) organization in 2004. Since then Shetterly and his organization have participated in hundreds of events, presentations, and exhibitions. To date, Shetterly and his portraits have been invited into grammar schools, high schools, and colleges in 35 states and Washington, D.C.   In addition, AWTT has collaborated with a number of organizations working to promote engaged citizenship through education and the media.