Category: Art

The double whammy this week of Mike Flynn’s resignation, followed by the NY Times, and then CNN, reports of extensive contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian intelligence, felt like a turning point.

But turning to what? Whatever it is Trump is hiding finally being exposed? The cowardly party-before-country anti-patriots of the Republican Congress seeing that they really do need to serve as a check on Trump to save our democracy? The emergence of some sanity from the White House?

I fear not. While those of us firmly planted in a stance of resistance applaud news reports that chip away at the credibility of Trump as President, where is this all taking us? Though that’s not the point, actually.

The point is to tell the truth. Truth! Who knew that would become such a difficult concept to hang on to.

Whatever this week was, and whether we’ll look back and see this was the turning point, or one of the corners we rounded, on our way back to a safe, tolerant, respectful and proud country it certainly felt profound and important.

So I wove together stories and images from the NY Times published on Wednesday, which featured the story on the Trump campaign contacts with Russian intelligence on the front page and a full page story on the resistance. I once again didn’t — haven’t yet and don’t intend to — use Trump’s face, though this collage features many faces: women protesting, Elijah Cummings (D-MD), John McCain, Pence, Spicer. And then a hulking black figure over a dark path leading from a government building.

But the thing is, when I make collages only from newspapers it’s difficult to get past the dullness of newsprint. I showed the collage to David this morning and talked to him about the visual effect and he said, “This is the artist in you growing. You see what needs to be different.”

So now I’m thinking about how to highlight elements of newspaper collages in ways that have a stronger visual effect — adding color and shading  and my own outlining.

A turning point.

When David and I reached the fourth floor voices rose from down the hall to the left. We turned and saw a few people gathered by an open door. Once we stepped through the door into Wrong Brain Headquarters the buzz of dozens of excited people shot us full of energy. The room was packed with people of all sizes and ages, with long hair and short, facial hair and tattoos and bright clothes and black leggings, jeans and skirts and dresses and blazers, people standing and sitting and talking in groups, exclaiming at the art and greeting friends.

David went off to look at the exhibition —  This Is What TRANS Feels Like, hosted by Wrong Brain, a nonprofit arts organization in Dover that “aims to provide an outlet and venue for unconventional, under-represented and emerging art of all kinds.”

I got caught by a rack of brightly colored zines — hot pink, orange and purple covers with black text and fantastical drawings. A sign announced the zines were free and I began stacking one of each in my hands. What great colors and images for collages, what a resource for burrowing in to the world of Wrong Brain.

A old friend greeted me and I noticed her tag (David and I had been swept into the room right past the welcome table) had her name, as well as her preferred pronouns — she, her. I looked around and saw everyone’s name tag included their choice of pronouns, both gender binary and neutral. I felt like I’d found a refuge.

I read a lot of news — daily doses of the NYTimes, the Concord Monitor, the Washington Post, and then clicks off Twitter into The Guardian, Slate, the Wall Street Journal, BBC, Politico, The Hill. Despair can be hard to push back because it feels like tolerance, respect and kindness are all being pushed back. Suddenly black and brown people more than ever are fair game for overt hatred and discrimination, Muslims are terrorists, gay people are deviants and transgender people are just plain weird.

Well not in Dover, NH last Friday night. The exhibition was put together to give artists a place to express “what it means to be transgender and the unique experiences transgender Granite Staters face.” What a relief, to still be able to walk into a room of people ready to celebrate diversity, to look at art that comes out of struggle and pain, to witness courage in expression.

In “The Gender Series,” a stunning display of nine photographs, Jeff Kramer poses in self-portraits that move from feminine to neutral to masculine. Kramer, a trans man, told Kelly Sennott at The Hippo in an excellent article reviewing the show when it was in Manchester last summer, that “I was going through my transition, and I was having a very hard time. . . .  Photography saved my life. By doing this series, I was getting my feelings from the inside to the outside.”

The rest of the wall with Kramer’s series was hung with pieces from trans artists as well as allies. But honestly, I didn’t get to see the rest of the art because David and I were meeting friends for dinner and I’d spent most of the time talking to Beth Wittenberg, a resident artist. She had made many of the zines I picked up and exuded good cheer and enthusiasm and had a lot to say about making art and creating space to welcome others into the process. “Come visit and we’ll make a zine,” she said when I told her I write and make collages.

It was David who led me to the photos. On the adjacent wall was a large, grafitti-like painting by Michelle Rose Pizzo with dark, stylized figures dancing through colors as bright and rich as the zines that had first pulled me when I walked in.

David and I had to leave; there was still so much to see. I want to go back. If you need some reinforcement of your own courage and resistance, go see this show. This is art that says I’m here, art matters, I matter — this is what TRANS feels like.

The show will be up until February 14, at Wrong Brain, Washington Street Mills, 1 Washington Street, Suite #459, Dover, open Monday — Saturday 11 – 5 and Tuesday until 8 p.m. The exhibit, coordinated by Freedom New Hampshire (FNH) in partnership with the ACLU-NH, and Rights and Democracy NH (RAD-NH), is free.

I’ve read all the zines. Amazing, intriguing, wholly inventive. The archived zines on the Wrong Brain website are well worth a visit also.

Painting Fragment — Michelle Rose Pizzo

Zine #9

Zine Pages

Zine Pages

My response to the incoming Trump administration fluctuates between rage and terror. Staying in the range of rage feels more useful. Fear can lead to paralysis and actions that are protective and defensive, rather than challenging and offensive. I want to be on offense.

In that stance, I’m calling back my original adult rage as a woman, when I first began to understand how patriarchy and male domination shaped not only my life but the course of human history. Men’s subjection and ownership of women has done nothing but harm, though the men in charge would argue that this statement is meaningless because men controlling women is how the world should be organized.

To which I would say, “Not true. And fuck you!” Yesterday the Trump transition team sent a memo to the State Department, asking for information “outlining existing programs and activities to promote gender equality, such as ending gender-based violence, promoting women’s participation in economic and political spheres, entrepreneurship, etc.” Should we be worried? Hell, yes. State Department employees are and so am I. 

I’m also pissed and returning to my feminist roots to shape my fury and dig in against the coming assaults by the Trump administration on reproductive rights, gender equity, body autonomy, public benefits and a living wage, because keeping people poor and dependent hurts no one more than women and their children.

In that spirit, my most recent collage is from a the NY Time Style Magazine article on Simone de Beauvoir, an early feminist. The Second Sex was one of the first feminist books I read. Beauvoir’s analysis of women’s oppression and gender as a social construct influenced my thinking and put me on the path to my career working to end violence against women.

Battered women’s and rape crisis programs began by women telling each other their stories of violation and abuse. Out of these stories a movement of resistance was born, because listening to each other helped women understand they were not alone, they were not to blame for violence perpetrated against them, and they could organize to support each other in getting out from under the control of abusers.

Now the stories emerging post-election are essential to the resistance against the intolerance, greed and autocracy we see coming as Trump and his cronies take over the most powerful positions in our country. Listening to stories of frustrations and wrongs and triumphs will remind us we’re not alone, we’re not to blame for the violations of our human rights and that we can organize to support each other and push back at attempts to control us.

Here are three stories I’ve heard recently.

The day after the election, a second grade boy in North Carolina was inconsolable and couldn’t stop crying. He was afraid when he went home his parents would be gone, kicked out of the country.

A woman in West Virginia left her house early on election day to be sure she’d have time to vote before having to be at work at 9:00 a.m. When she got to the polls she was told her home was no longer in the district for that polling place and the location where she could vote was 40 minutes away. Some of her neighbors were also there and unable to vote. When they asked why they hadn’t been notified of the change, they were told a notice had been published in the paper — as they found out, a tiny notice on an inside page. The woman never got to vote because she couldn’t afford to be late for work.

A young man whose family had voted for Obama talked to his father after the election and it came out that the father had voted for Trump. When the son asked how he could have done that, the father wavered and said he’d thought he’d vote for Clinton but he didn’t agree with all of Clinton’s policies. Finally, the father admitted that when he got in the voting booth, “I just couldn’t bring myself to vote for a woman for President.”

Feminist anger as fuel. I’m ready to blast off.