civil rights

Hope #21 Black Lives Matter

Posted by Cranford
Hope #21 Black Lives Matter

The 21st image of hope is that of an incarcerated police officer. Police officers in the US have been murdering Black men and at the rate of 2 per day since the end of the Civil War without any consequences. They have been killing Native Americans at almost the same rate, with impunity. It is “Shoot first. Ask questions never.” Police even execute Black men who are handcuffed in the back of police cars, in front of their children, who have done nothing wrong, and face no consequences. The Bible is full of warnings of judgment against a society who does not punish the wrongdoer, or who does not avenge those who oppress those of low degree. America claims to be a land of freedom and rights. This is NOT what people of color see, which is the majority of the world. It is not what anyone who knows the facts see, either.

I painted the bars red, as if dripping with the blood of the innocents. It would be horrible to see a violent backlash against police and a complete breakdown of the social order. But that is what the police and the courts are bringing us to, if they do not execute just judgment. As Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “A riot is the language of the unheard.”

For those who concocted “Blue Lives Matter” I have this to say: it is pure racism! There is no such thing as a blue life! People choose to be police officers. Multiple incidents have borne the lie of that. There was an off-duty Black police officer who was approached by officers. He was carrying in an open carry state. He had a permit. He was doing nothing illegal, were he White or Black. An officer opened fire on him. Another officer recognized him and told the other one to stop. He refused to stop, because he was Black! So all blue lives matter for is preferential treatment, if they happen to also be White.

It needs to end!

This is #21 in my images of hope for Perkasie Fun-A-Day 2018

Painting is acrylic on 6″ x 6″ x 1.75″ stretched canvas.

Price: $20 plus postage

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Hope #15 Racial Equality

Posted by Cranford
Hope #15 Racial Equality

When I was a child there was a “Flesh” Crayon in my box of 64 colors. It was for an obviously pale complected person like me. Some time in the 1970s, Binney & Smith replaced the wrapper on that Crayon with “Peach”. It was the same color, only the times had changed. By the mid 1980s, I saw a box of 16 Crayons, which were all different shades. All 16 were labeled “Flesh”. The times, they had changed! By the time Obama was elected in 2008, some White folks presumed to declare that we had become “post-racial”, proving just how out of touch they were with the Black, Hispanic, and Native American experience in this country. American police murder an average of two Black men and 1 to 2 Native Americans every day without consequence. They have been doing this every day for over 150 years. Then there are the incarceration rates, the jobless rates. The infant mortality rates, and on and on.

Then Trump appoints Nazis and KKK and openly supports them from the White House! It looks bad now. But, believe me, he is an old man and not healthy. His party and the Democrats are not healthy. A new day is coming.

We dare to hope! We want the whole box of Crayons! People are people!

Bigots can go to hell, sooner rather than later, please!

Painting is acrylic on 6″ x 6″ x 1.75″ stretched canvas.

Price: $20 reduced to $10 plus postage

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Hope #14 LGBTQ

Posted by Cranford
Hope #14 LGBTQ

I never said hope isn’t controversial. One person’s hopes and aspirations can seem threatening to another’s view of the world or their economic grip on things. When slaves hope for freedom, their masters’ standard of living and leisure is threatened. When the Lesbian Gay Bi Transgender and Queer become visible and vocal, religious authoritarians and others who are afraid of losing their positions of authority if gender lines get blurred or gender oppression were to end get riled up. This is to hope that bullying will stop, human rights will be respected; civil rights will be extended; and we will learn to live at peace and with respect for one another.

The painting is actually the middle square set at a 45° angle.

Painting is acrylic on 6″ x 6″ x 1.75″ stretched canvas.

Price: $20 reduced to $10 plus postage

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Hope #11 Time’s Up!

Posted by Cranford
Hope #11 Time's Up!

This is a simple painting of a digital stopwatch. Instead of numbers, the read out says: “Time’s Up!” This represents the movement and the hope for the end of patriarchy and with it, the end of sexually abusive and predatory practices. Many worked and are working toward this end for years, including many women in the socialist and anarchist movements, such as Ana Pauker, Emma Goldman, and the women and men of Philly Socialists and similar organizations. Recently, it has gotten mainstream press in the New York Times and at the Golden Globes. Hopefully this is not just this year’s fad, but is a real sea change that will mean the end of patriarchy. Hopefully, it will end abuse, and not just replace it with a different form of abuse. We have seen pendulum swings and witch hunts before. We need healing and a new era. We can only hope.

Painting is acrylic on 4″ x 4″ x 1-3/4″ stretched canvas.

Price: $35 reduced to $10 plus postage

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SPOON!

Posted by Cranford
SPOON!

Comrades Skittles and Oreo are ordering us to take our positive affection opposition to fascism up another notch with this one. First, there was “CUDDLE!” Then it was “SNUGGLE!” Now it’s: “SPOON!”

Couldn’t you just see it; a couple hundred thousand couples spooning on the mall in DC, gently asking for no more imperialist wars, an end to subsidies to petroleum, full conversion to solar power, conversion to cradle-to-cradle production cycles eliminating landfills, … ? Cats can dream, can’t they?

Painting is 16″ x 20″ acrylic on stretched canvas.

Price: $200 plus postage

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SNUGGLE!

Posted by Cranford

Phase Two of the Revolution: SNUGGLE!

SNUGGLE!

Cuddling was phase one. I realize we need to work on that. Some may be asking what the difference is between cuddling and snuggling. C’mon, comrades! Are we serious about making progress and spreading love and joy? Well, then, the difference should be obvious. Snuggling involves more motion. It can be done in larger groups. Think mosh pits, only embracing. Now put that on the road to Mar-a-Lago to block one of the so-called president’s golf vacations he said he was never going to take. The international press would have fun with that, so would all of us snugglers.

“Make New Friends, Not New Refugees!”

This just came out from my fellow Minneapolitan. It expresses the sentiment of the movement:

The original is for sale now, but within a week, hopefully, I will have posters, postcards and lawn signs.

Painting is 16″ x 20″ acrylic on stretched canvas.

Price: $200 plus postage

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CUDDLE!

Posted by Cranford
CUDDLE!

I have been searching for ways to use my art to positively respond to the current horror that we face in American governmental breakdown. Each day, there is a new attack; a new round of newspeak. One day it is a congresswoman proudly proclaiming that her vote giving permission to internet service providers to sell all of our browsing histories to whomever wants to buy them “protects your privacy.” The next day, Sean Spicer is giving a grimacing Park Service employee a huge, game-show, donation check for $78,000 (supposedly Trump’s 3 months’ net salary), two days after Trump’s budget cut the Park Service budget by over $1.5 billion. Fact checkers have determined that 69.1% of Trump’s statements are false. One White House reporter said in frustration, “It is hard to know what to think when you can’t tell what Trump means when he uses words.”

Yesterday, I started to paint this portrait of my cat, with a Che Guevara beret. Skittles helps keep me sane. He climbs up onto my left side and cuddles. If things get too intense, he lies on my keyboard. We have matching heart murmurs. He will get in my face and command me to “CUDDLE!” It struck me that this is what America and much of the world needs right now. I can see it now, massive cuddle-ins in front of defense contractors and fracking stations; cuddlers blocking access to United Airlines offices; cuddlers circling the Pentagon; cuddlers on the mall in DC asking for an end to military expansion and for universal healthcare.

“Make Love, not Human Services Cuts!”

HUG O’ WAR

I will not play at tug o’ war.
I’d rather play at hug o’ war,
Where everyone hugs
Instead of tugs,
Where everyone giggles
And everyone giggles
And rolls on the rug,
Where everyone kisses,
And everyone kisses,
And everyone grins,
And everyone cuddles.
And everyone wins.
– Shel Silverstein

Painting is 16″ x 20″ acrylic on stretched canvas.

Price: $300 plus postage

SOLD

Nina Cried Power!

Posted by Cranford
Nina Cried Power!

Since my painting of Aaron Swartz, The Ghost in the Machine, was so well received I painted a 24″ x 24″ black and white portrait of Nina Simone. My hope is that you will find it to be as stark and as powerful as Hozier’s tribute to her and other singers in the US civil rights movement is.

Nina Simone (February 21, 1933 – April 21, 2003) was born in Tryon, North Carolina to a Methodist minister and a handyman and occasional preacher. She was named Eunice Kathleen Waymon. She learned how to play piano by ear when she was three. She played the piano in church as a child, but did not sing in the choir. By the time she graduated high school as valedictorian of her class, she was an accomplished classical and jazz pianist, as well as a singer. The townspeople raised money to pay for her to go to Julliard, however her family had moved to Philadelphia, so she applied to Curtis instead. They rejected her application. She felt this was due to racism. This killed her hope of being a great, black, woman, classical pianist. She started teaching music to get by. She also started to play and sing at some nightclubs. One night she decided it would help her career to change her name. She chose “Nina” which means “little girl” in Spanish and “Simone” after the actor Simone Signoret.

She wanted her singing to count for something, so she chose and wrote songs to record that addressed racism, lynching and civil and human rights. This was a risk at the time for a young, black woman in the 1950s and 60s. Her recording career spanned four decades. Her rendition of Strange Fruit is haunting.

“We never talked about men or clothes. It was always Marx, Lenin and revolution – real girls’ talk.”

-Nina Simone

For more of her bio and discography, check out www.ninasimone.com.

The painting is acrylic on 24″ x 24″ stretched canvas.

Price: $320 plus postage.

SOLD!

Steven Biko

Posted by Cranford
Steven Biko

Nelson Mandela gets credit for ending apartheid in South Africa, but he couldn’t have done it without Steve Biko, and many others inspired by him, who put their lives on the line. Part of his story is told in the movie Cry Freedom! starring Kevin Kline and Denzel Washington. He was beaten to death by the police while being held in custody for the crime of teaching black children to read.

Biko (December 18, 1946 – September 12, 1977) was also responsible for starting the Black Consciousness movement. In the US, this manifested itself as “Black is Beautiful”.

Steven Bantu Biko was also the inspiration for Peter Gabriel’s hit song Biko.

This portrait is in my “Heroes” series.

Painting is acrylic on 12″ x 12″ stretched canvas.

Price: $100 plus postage.

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Marielle Franco

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Marielle Franco

Marielle Franco (27 July 1979 – 14 March 2018) was shot to death, along with her driver, Anderson Pedro Gomes, on March 14 of this year, in her home district, where she served as a city councillor of the Municipal Chamber of Rio de Janeiro for the Socialism and Liberty Party from January 2017 until her death. She had just delivered a speech against police brutality and extrajudicial killings. She died of 3 shots to the head, one to the neck. The bullets used to kill them were Federal bullets. They tried to concoct a story that they had been stolen from a post office facility where they had been stored, but the Post Office would not cooperate with the Federal Government’s false story.

Marielle has been working tirelessly and cheerfully for years for the rights of the poor, ever since a close friend was killed by a stray bullet in 2000. She rose out of the favelas; and went to college and university on scholarships as a single mother. She had a daughter in 1998. She wrote her master’s thesis on taking back the favelas from the gangs. In 2007, she entered politics by working for State Representative Marcelo Freixo. She identified as bi-sexual. On the City Council, she had fought against gender violence and  tried to create a day of lesbian visibility in August 2017. It failed 19-17. She was planning on marrying her long-term partner, Mônica Tereza Benício, in September 2019.

Marielle was politically savvy and knew she needed well placed friends. She became friends with Glenn Greenwald. He listed what he referred to as the “most important subjects to cover” regarding Franco’s assassination stating:
“Her relentless and brave activism against the most lawless police battalions, her opposition to military intervention, and, most threateningly of all, her growing power as a black, gay woman from the favela seeking not to join Brazil’s power structure, but to subvert it.”

The Federal Police sadly proved the truth of Marielle’s last speech by so immediately assassinating her and her driver. But as Medgar Evers said, “You can kill a man, but you cannot kill an idea.” Sadly, in the era of Trump, we still need to say it: Women are equal.

Painting is acrylic on 12″ x 16″ stretched canvas.

Price: $120 plus postage.

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Mavis Staples and Pops

Posted by Cranford

Mavis Staples is another voice of the civil rights movement. She, along with Arcade Fire, was the first to record a song of resistance to the so-called president Trump, releasing it one day before his inauguration.

It is a song in the prophetic tradition, speaking from the viewpoint of God, as a warning. It can also be understood as the inscription on the wall of the Minnesota state house says: “Vox Populi Vox Dei.” “The Voice of the People is the Voice of God.”

Mavis Staples and Pops

Mavis Staples is no stranger to powerfully speaking truth to the people. She was with her dad, Roebuck Staples, who everyone called “Pops” when he wrote “Freedom Highway” for Martin Luther King, Jr., to start the Freedom March. I painted Mavis on the river stage at the XPoNential Music Festival in July 2016, in Camden, NJ, with the Philadelphia skyline in the background. The festival happened the weekend after the GOP National Convention. Another performer had made the mistake of watching it. Being the sensitive soul that he was, it was more than he could take. He had a full-blown meltdown on stage, and gave a half hour expletive filled rant, instead of performing his set. Well, Mavis took the stage Sunday afternoon and said something along the line of: “Times are looking bad. It’s been a rough week, but I’m here to make you feel good! I’m not promising you it’s going to last, but while I’m up here, you’re going to feel good!” And she said, “Now we’re going to sing a song that we used to sing with Pops and Dr. King in dark times to get to better times.” She started singing, “If You’re Ready (Come Go With Me)”, with some added lyrics that sounded like a socialist platform. I was listening on the radio, because I was grounded, due to complications from my heart-valve replacement surgery. I was in tears of joy. Later in the set, she recalled Pops writing of Freedom Highway, then performed it. I should say, she led it. She was really doing her job as a minstrel and prophet and poet in dark times; enthusiastically bringing hope against all odds, and pointing the way upward. She said she started singing with her sisters in 1966 and wasn’t done yet. at age 77. She’s still going strong, speaking out, and lifting spirits.

Pops passed away in 2000, at age 86. I painted him in this painting (in gray tones), because he was ‘larger than life’ in that concert, in the songs, and in the heart of Mavis.

Painting is 20″ x 16″ acrylic on stretched canvas.

Price: $200 plus postage

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Pete Seeger

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Pete Seeger

The first time we saw Pete Seeger, we were so close that to him that we were literally within spitting distance. He was giving a free concert at Penn’s Landing under the old fiberglass pavilion. I believe it was 1981. Bethann and I went there with our friends Frank and Colleen. We arrived just in time for the concert to start. The place was full. Everyone was seated on blankets spread out on the concrete floor of the pavilion leaving a ten foot space in front of the stage. Frank sees the space and says, “Look, they left room for us right up front!” and proceeds to the front, lays down the blanket and sets us up. We were front and center. Once Pete got going, we were, indeed, blessed with his saliva. It was a great experience, nonetheless. When tugboats came up the river they blew their horns to salute Mr. Seeger, as they knew he was giving a concert there that day. He was famous for his love of rivers and boats. He promoted environmentalism and spearheaded the clean-up and restoration of the Hudson River.

I was to hear Pete Seeger perform live on three more occasions in the 1980s, all of them demonstrations that I was taking part in, in Washington, DC. He was famous for his union organizing songs and work with the Weavers. There is too much to be said about such a full and long life for one little blog post. He lived over 94 years (May 3, 1919 – January 27, 2014). He published a magazine of sheet music of folk music and protest songs. He was a communist and blacklisted for it, during the McCarthy era. There is a petition to name the new Tappan Zee Bridge in New York after him. Read more about him here.

Painting is 18″ x 14″ acrylic on stretched canvas.

Price: $200 plus postage

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Odetta

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Odetta

Odetta Holmes was born December 31, 1930, in Birmingham, Alabama. She is one of those rare personages who went through life known by only her first name: Odetta. Martin Luther King, Jr. called her “the queen of American folk music!” She sang folk, blues and spirituals. Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Janis Joplin and Mavis Staples all claimed her as a major formation influence for their music. She started performing publicly at age 13. Her last performance was October 25, 2008. She was invited to perform at Barack Obama’s inauguration, but, sadly, she passed away of heart disease on December 2, 2008.

I painted her as part of my “Personal Heroes” series, because she never just sang for her supper. She sang for a higher purpose. She was always seeking to break new ground, to make progress. She has been called the “voice of the civil rights movement.” I’m sure that is hyperbole. Surely that title needs to be shared with the Staples, the Weavers, Paul Robeson and many others. But she was not just pushing for civil rights; she promoted human rights and economic justice. She considered herself to be “just one foot soldier in the army.” Nonetheless, President Clinton awarded her the National Endowment for the Arts’ National Medal of Honor. She performed all over the world, and received many honors. This did not change her message. This is an iconic pose for her. She has a determined look on her face and she is pointing upwards. Her whole life was dedicated to using the gifts she was given: her beautiful voice, sharp mind and determined spirit, to get us all to move onward and upward!

We had the great honor and joy to be able to hear her perform live at the Philadelphia Folk Festival in 2001. (We had received complimentary tickets.) I was thrilled!

Painting is 12″ x 24″ acrylic on stretched canvas.

Price: $200 plus postage

Fill out the form below so we can arrange payment and delivery. I take PayPal, so all credit or debit cards are accepted.