The 2024 Democratic National Convention. On stage, mother and child sing loudly together. They belt beautiful questions about seeking and finding happiness. Two little girls look up at their Aunt. Their hair braids remind me of Ruby Bridges. How far we have come. My husband’s eyebrows shoot up as a sportsperson walks on stage and speaks plainly and directly. I’m intrigued enough to ask what he does. It’s Steve Kerr, a real popular basketball coach. Four of the Central Park Five spoke. I first heard their story many years ago and repeated it to an evangelical man I spoke to in Argentina. That must be fake news he said. Wow…Gabby Gifford awkwardly walked on stage and I thought, “well now there’s a real steel magnolia.” Her husband gazed at her with loving eyes. I’m swooning. Shades of blue are everywhere. A color meant to soothe.
American Woman is the first painting I have ever created that did not start with a particular person in mind. I was feeling uplifted and inspired by the sea of black, brown, cream, rainbows, hijabs, dreadlocks, kippahs…young and old and in-between…men and women and those in-between. I created faces that represented that hopeful sea. Everyone smooshed together, all belonging. I even squeezed in the Statue of Liberty while quietly remembering, “give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” I’m sure we all know those words but Jewish-American Poet Emma Lazarus didn’t stop there. She went further adding “until we are all free, we are none of us free.”
I woke up to posts of people I know praising Jesus. My Jesus. My Jesus of love. My skin started crackling like hot aluminum foil squeezing under my skin. To ease this pain, I went to my studio to paint, to find a little release. I found my last clean canvas, although I would have created on the wall if I had to. I knew I would use black; it seemed right. I grabbed a piece of charcoal and quickly sketched a stick figure in the middle: a circle, a vertical line, 4 diagonal lines, two dots, and 4 semi-circles. I didn’t like the distance between my hands and the canvas, but habit made me reach for a tiny brush. Something inside stopped me. In a rush, I reached for the black paint tube. I couldn’t get it out fast enough. I grabbed an old jar of black close by and peeled off the layer of skin that had formed on top. The sensation of the wet sticky film on my fingers comforted me. I dragged the skin and my wet fingers across the canvas towards the lines in the middle. The black violated all the intentional charcoal lines in the center. The perfect circle melted away, but my body still hurt. Red. I rubbed red across the center line between the curves and dragged outward. Four minutes in total passed. My first self-portrait was finished. I left the tar and red on my fingers and stared at my painting. Thinking and not thinking at the same time. My friend called, and we cried together and sat silently together. Both talking and not talking.
Middle of the night, “Red, and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight,” sang through my mind. A familiar song from childhood that should have brought me peace, it did not. Okay, try something else, Maya Angelou. Recite one of her poems, and maybe you can go back to sleep. Nope. Edvard Munch? No, don’t think of his work, not now…I just want to sleep! Fine! I’ll get up and go to work. Maya, Edvard, and Jesus.
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