Ernesto Che Guevara was born on June 14, 1928. (My birthday in June 14, 1955.) His early life is documented in the book and movie: The Motorcycle Diaries, about his travels from one end of South America to the other on a motorcycle. This trip was formative in his education as a revolutionary. He became a medical doctor first. In 1955, Fidel Castro’s brother Raul introduced them, and he joined the revolution in Cuba. On June 2, 1959, he married Aleida March. After he witnessed what Dulles’ CIA did to dismantle the popularly elected socialist governments of Guatemala and Honduras, he persuaded Harvard educated Fidel Castro that he would need to maintain a benign dictatorship to resist the dirty tricks and subversion of the American government with their interference in other nations’ elections.Perhaps our chickens are coming home to roost.
In 1965, then he joined the revolution in Kinshasa, Congo. In 1966, he joined the revolution in Bolivia. He was captured by the CIA on October 8, 1967, and summarily executed the next day. So much for human rights and due process and The Geneva Convention.
Che was a passionate man. He was in the fight for love of the people, not for personal gain or some dogmatic or idealized view of proving a point. I am sick to death of the communist, socialist and anarchist groups in the US who are full of history nerds and armchair philosophers who don’t give a damn about anyone but themselves. Che gave his life in service to nations. Because of what he did, thousands, perhaps millions of people were given a shot at life who otherwise would not have done.
“If you tremble with indignation at every injustice, then you are a comrade of mine.”
“Let me say, at the risk of seeming ridiculous, that the true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love.” – both by El Che
There was nothing ridiculous about Che’s love for the common people and his passionate struggle to liberate them.
Painting is 24″ x 18″ acrylic on stretched canvas.
Price: $150 plus postage
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This piece was a long time in the making. The core of it has sat as a text on what is my now defunct cellphone since December 17, 2015. It is crude and ridiculous. Diamond sent it to me after we had helped her and her man for over a year in various ways. Among other things, it includes the first and second and only times I have been called a bitch. When I read it, I broke into uproarious laughter. I determined then and there that I had to somehow immortalize this. This was by far the most creative “thank you” I had ever received for helping someone in 30 years of serving among the poor! I showed Tony. He couldn’t believe it. Earlier that evening, we had delivered their belongings back to them that they had stored in our barn since August. Some people just have a hard time saying thank you.
On August 14 Diamond and Rashawn had dropped off five huge garbage bags of their belongings at our barn for safe-keeping and tried to pull a fast one by just assuming they could arrive at our house with their stuff, and move in. They had not asked. They did not even ask for the ride. They just slipped into the back seat of John’s car. John just assumed they must have worked something out with me. They sat silently all the way home from Phila. to our home in Souderton, figuring I wouldn’t have the nerve to turn them away. I was home, because I was ill. When I heard them in the backyard, I lost it.
Tony had never seen me or heard me in such a rage before. I just could not understand the sheer gall at the level of presumption and deception that it took to try to do that. It was not like we didn’t have history. At Memorial Day, she had tried to guilt me into paying for a month’s rent, even though the weather was OK, and we had no money. When I did not pay it, she accused me of driving drunk, (She had seen me have 3 beers all day, several hours before we left to bring them home.) One used to be able to read about our appeal and the story on The King’s Jubilee’s site, before TKJ went out of business.
Over the last two years, as I have had open heart surgery for my aortic valve replacement; and as our house was foreclosed on and auctioned by the sheriff; as I went through three infections in my chest incision and ended up allergic to a ninth antibiotic; almost all of the old supporters and volunteers were silent, invisible, evaporated. with a few notable exceptions. Then I would refer to this glorious text message and have a good laugh. Diamond had really put her heart into it!
When our team was serving food in the park, Tony saw them. They were too embarrassed to come over for food. He called me. I told him to take food to them. He did, and gave them my love.
On the left side of the painting I wrote, “At least she said something. Read Revelations 3:16-18. It’s more than I can say for most of the church people in my life.”
Revelation 3:16-18 So, because you are lukewarm-neither hot nor cold-I am about to spit you out of my mouth. You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see.
So the painting was done in layers. It is the logo of The King’s Jubilee in subdued tones on a 24″ square canvas. Painted over that is the QR Code for the text that Diamond sent me on December 17, 2015. That way, anyone with a smart phone with a QR Code app can read it, but it is not visible to casual observers or children. I thought this was a much better solution than counted cross-stitch. I discussed it with my therapist today. She and I had a good laugh. I said, “When I post this, the shit is probably going to hit the fan.” She said, “So what! That is what good art is supposed to do. It provokes a response.”
I asked her if she didn’t think I was totally off my nut for preserving this text in this way and doing this. She told me, no, quite the contrary. I had taken this ridiculous attack, seen it for what it was, and now turned it into something beautiful.
You’re Welcome.
Painting is 24″ x 24″ acrylic on stretched canvas.
SOLD
The irony here is the first time I shared it at a public showing, the first one to hit it with a QR code reader on a phone was a 9-year-old girl. I heard, “Look at this, daddy.” And I thought, “O shit.” I explained to him. We had a good chuckle. Our next door neighbor, who was visiting the show, stopped by, enjoyed the story, liked the painting, and bought it.
When I was eight years old, our family went to Fort Snelling during their restoration preparations for their big sesquicentennial in 1969. We were only six years early. They were already selling memorabilia to help pay for it. While we were there, we witnessed a polo game. It was the only time in my life I have done so. My mom grew up with horses, so this was mandatory. Lawyers had not gained as much of a foothold by then, so fans just sat on the grass, with no barriers between themselves and the field. Polo matches were rare, so there were no stands. When a ball got so nicked up that it was deemed too poor to continue in play, they would simply knock it to the sidelines.
A ball came hurtling out of the field. I went racing toward it. So did another boy. Now I was pigeon-toed and never that athletic, but I threw myself on that painted cork ball! I nabbed it fair and square! I took it home and found that it had a special charm. I placed it in a drawer of my maple desk with the Masonite drawer bottoms. When I opened that drawer, the ball would roll around and the divots in the ball would make the most interesting sounds and resonate in that drawer. For 12 years, I kept that drawer empty except for that ball, just so I could roll it around to make that special sound.
My mom never understood this special delight. Countless times I would come home from school and see a huge trash bag outside the back door with things from my room in it. Before entering the house, I would retrieve my polo ball and a few other choice possessions, then take out the rest to the trash. I would then enter the back door. I would holler, “Mom! Did you clean my room?” She would answer, “Yes.” I would say, “Did you throw anything out?” She would say, “No.” I would say, “OK.” And I would return the polo ball to its drawer. My mom had cryptic methods of education. Looking back, this was probably her way of training me for politics and negotiations. I am nearly 61. My mom has been dead since 1993. I still have the polo ball. Sadly, I don’t have the maple desk with the Masonite bottomed drawers.
The painting is acrylic on 10″x 8″ stretched canvas. Price: $55reduced to $25 plus postage.
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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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“Nothing but blue skies from now on!”, the song says. The first Earth Week really shook up President Richard Nixon. I was 14. I headed it up in my junior high. We actually made the evening news on our local, CBS affiliate for one of our actions. 70 of us, without any adult supervision, rode our bicycles with environmental slogans on signs on them, from Carl Sandberg Jr. High in Golden Valley to Hennepin Ave, in downtown Minneapolis with trash bags and collected litter and trash all up and down Hennepin and placed the mountain of trash in bags at the base of the flags on Nicollet Mall. Then we biked home. Now, if we were the only one, and that was all we did, it would have been cute. But it wouldn’t have impacted federal policy. But that was just the last of several actions we did that week. Hundreds of us had abandoned the buses and walked or bicycled several miles each way to school that week. We participated in a teach-in, etc. This was student organized. Thousands of schools and colleges and universities had environmental fairs and demonstrations. Nearly all regular classes across the country on almost all levels of education were replaced on Wednesday of that week with Earth Day Teach-Ins that happened in the fresh air when at all possible. This all happened before the internet, before cellphones, without paid TV commercials or magazine ads. It scared the living daylights out of Richard Milhouse Nixon. He knew the only possible way he could get re-elected was if he would address environmental issues. He created the Environmental Protection Agency. The impact of that act and the ensuing regulations on the improvement on urban air quality, reduction of lung cancer, emphysema, asthma and a number of other ailments is amazing.
Yet, there are those who would go back to the bad old days and deregulate. They think it is too expensive to have low emissions and clean air. Here is a photo of Los Angeles before and after the EPA.
Let’s hope for blue skies from now on.
Painting is acrylic on 6″ x 6″ x 1.75″ stretched canvas.
Price: $10 plus postage
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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 Americansevery 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: $20reduced to $10 plus postage
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We hope to stop global warming and preserve biodiversity. This is a painting of a Butterfly Fish on a coral reef. Butterfly Fish are about the same size as sunfish or rock bass, 5 to 6 inches long. They have a 7 to 10 year lifespan and mate for life. There are a wild variety of colors and patterns of Butterfly Fish, but their numbers in the wild are decreasing. They are endangered, due to global warming and pollution killing the coral reefs which provide their food and protection.
What is truly sick is that there are many wealthy, older capitalists who don’t care about the future of the planet. I have actually heard them speaking about this. All they care about is that their stock portfolios do well enough to take care of them until they die. There was even a so-called Christian Secretary of the Interior Watts, under Reagan, who said that we did not have to preserve our natural resources in our parklands, because “Jesus was coming back soon.” I signed a record-setting petition for his removal. Reagan finally listened. Trump’s team is worse and he is deaf.
Painting is acrylic on 6″ x 6″ x 1.75″ stretched canvas.
Price: $25reduced to $10 plus postage
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The Founding Fathers had great hopes for hemp as an export crop for the fledgling republic, and for a subsistence crop for homesteaders. Jefferson and Washington both grew it and smoked it. They promoted it for a primary crop for the new nation. because of its many uses for rope, structural beams, smoking, tea. It is even reported that they smoked some after signing the Declaration of Independence.
It has been shown to repair the damage done by strokes. It can stop migraines, some of which (mine) cause strokes. It is not physically addictive. It does not cause cancer. In fact, it has some curative properties. Smoking it has actually been shown to have a positive effect on the brain of stroke victims, actually repairing damaged areas and restoring lost function. It is a non-addictive, non-damaging painkiller to provide relief for people with chronic pain and degenerative diseases.
Not just the legalization of marijuana, but the affordable availability of marijuana without prejudice is a hope for millions of suffering people. It is also a much healthier high than alcohol, so wouldn’t damage families with alcoholism.
Painting is acrylic on 6″ x 6″ x 1.75″ stretched canvas.
Price: $40reduced to $15 plus postage
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I may have mentioned before, that I grew up in Minnesota. In my day, there was a strong and booming middle class, thanks to an aggressive, progressive income tax structure on both the federal and state levels. On weekends, holidays and vacations (Working people actually took vacations back then), it seemed just about anybody and everybody went “to the lake”. That is what we all said. Our cars’ license plates advertised “10,000 Lakes”. The Almanac counted 12,512 lakes plus a few thousand ponds. One did not have to leave “the Cities”, short for “the Twin Cities”, Minneapolis and St. Paul, to go to a lake. Mpls. is a mash-up of Sioux and Greek meaning “City of Lakes” and has 25 lakes within the city limits, including one manmade one, since they just needed to round up, I guess.
When I was in junior high, my folks bought a lake place just across the river in Wisconsin. I learned the cheeseheads called Minnesotans “swampies”. But this article was supposed to be about my painting of a Great Blue Heron. I grew up seeing these beautiful, fishing birds on the edges of lakes and swooping down and diving into them all of my young life, growing up in Minnesota and Wisconsin. I have seen them occasionally, if only fleetingly, in PA.
Painting is acrylic on 10″ x 10″ stretched canvas.
Pepi was a Golden Cocker Spaniel. Our family purchased him at a service station along Route 8 on our way home from family camp at Camp Lawton on Deer Lake in Wisconsin, when I was six. He was the runt of the litter, so they let him go for $10. I was the youngest of the four children. I spent the most time with him. He pretty much became my dog. Like me, he had a wide circle of friends, and roamed freely in a wide area of the neighborhood. We had Jewish next door neighbors who dearly loved him, and welcomed him into their house regularly. He would defend their front step as vigorously as ours from the paperboy or the mailman. The mailman always brought a Milkbone for Pepi. Pepi would bark, at first, for show. He would receive his treat and petting, then he would accompany our mailman along the rest of his route. This helped him a great deal, as Pepi would keep any dogs busy while he delivered the mail. If any pets were loose, Pepi would make sure they would not come near to, or harm, the mailman.
Pepi would always get excited when my dad got home from work. He knew when the normal time was and he would sit on the manhole cover in the middle of the street, looking East in anticipation of his car. Our neighbor’s Hebrew school bus would sometimes come to drop Elaine off after her lessons. Pepi would not budge from his spot on the manhole cover. The driver would have to veer way to the right to go around him. Pepi loved kosher food. Whenever there was a Jewish family picnic in the neighborhood, even if he had to cross the highway, somehow he would sniff it out and find it. He would beg for food and scarf up anything that was dropped. Then he would come home, eat grass and throw up. We found out just how far he had ranged when our neighbors, the Shermans, had a big gathering on the occasion of a visit of family members from Israel. Pepi, of course, attended, as well. So many of the guests said to each other, “So you know this dog, too?!”
The painting is based on a 4″ black and white snapshot I took of Pepi eating from his dishes in the back yard of our house on Lowry Terrace in Golden Valley, Minnesota. In the background is the fort that my dad built from plans from Popular Mechanics. It had a locked shed in the back for the lawn mower and yard tools. The front had a little play house with a ladder through a hatch to the top deck with the turrets. It was great for snowball fights, etc. That fort was a famous landmark for children for miles around. More kids played in our fort than I ever knew. Behind the fort was a swamp that had milkweed, so we had loads of Monarch butterflies and other wildlife. Behind that was a sledding hill with four rows of American Elms which separated three great sled runs, that terminated on the swamp, which, of course, froze in the winter. The lower part of our yard, next to the fort, was flooded for a skating rink, for several years when I was growing up. In the summer, our yard was the middle of three mostly flat yards, with only one tree, that ran together without fences, where we could play football, baseball, soccer, dodgeball, etc. It was a great place, and a great time to grow up.
The painting is acrylic on 12″ x 12″ stretched canvas.
Price: $100 plus postage
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Daphne Anne Vella was born in Silema, Malta on August 26, 1964. In 1985, she married attorney Peter Caruana Galizia. They had three sons, Matthew, Andrew, and Paul. In 1990, the family moved to Bidnija in Mosta. She was a political activist, an investigative journalist, and a blogger. Matthew, also, became an investigative journalist.
Daphne Caruana Galizia was fearless and tenacious in her pursuit of truth and justice. She was arrested several times. The front door of her house was set ablaze. Another time the family dog’s throat was slit and laid across the front doorstep. Threatening notes were tacked to her front door, or faxed or emailed to her, telling her to back down on stories or her life was in danger. Her car was set on fire. She did not back down. She was routing out corruption in Malta that had (and has) international, financial and environmental consequences. Some news outlets were too intimidated to carry her stories. In 2008, she set up her own blog, Running Commentary, to be unrestrained in publishing her own stories and opinion pieces.
She revealed on Running Commentary that a prominent Maltese government minister was entangled with unsavory dealings with Panama and New Zealand. This proved to be an embarrassment and true. It was the tip of the iceberg of the Panama Papers. By the time of Daphne’s assassination, there were 48 libel suits outstanding against her. There were also threats intimidating several media outlets, some of which were dropped within hours of her death. Her work in revealing the Panama Papers eventually brought down the government of Iceland and implicated banks and government officials around the world.
On October 16, 2017, at about 3 pm, Ms. Caruana Galizia was assassinated in a car bomb attack while she was driving her leased Peugeot 108 near their home.
In May 2017 Pilatus Bank’s owner and chairman, Ali Sadr Hasheminejad, sued Daphne Caruana Galizia in an Arizona court in his own name and in the name of Pilatus Bank. The case was for $40 million in damages. Ms. Caruana Galizia was never notified about it and it was withdrawn within hours of her assassination. The prime minister has refused to commission an investigation into her death. To this date, her assassination has not been solved. She has received over two dozen posthumous awards and honors in Europe and America for her integrity, and her good and heroic quest for truth as a journalist. There is a thorough article about her story in The New Yorker.
This painting has a red edge, so like the sad, old joke about newspapers, this is “black and white and red all ’round.”
The painting is acrylic on 24″ x 24″ stretched canvas.
Price: $320 plus postage.
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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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I painted this portrait of Rachel Carson while sitting at a picnic table in Menlo Park at Perkasie Pennsylvania’s Earth Day observance, yesterday. Earlier in the week, on Kid’s Corner, on WXPN Radio, I had heard the history of Earth Day and learned that there would never have been an Earth Day had it not been for Rachel Carson, and her scientific insights and tenacity. Yet she died in 1964 and the first Earth Day was in 1970. It was her book, Silent Spring, which had so caught Sen. Gaylord Nelson’s imagination and empowered his environmentalism.
It was the first time such a book, a scientific and fairly technical book had caught the imagination of the general population of the US. The title was the thing that did it. Rachel Carson was a marine biologist and a chemist and had noticed how the pesticides, particularly DDT, accumulated as it traveled up the food chain to the larger, predatory birds, like hawks, vultures and eagles. One of its effects was to reduce the presence of calcium, so that the egg shells were so soft that they would be crushed in the nest during incubation. Theoretically, with the continued overuse of these pesticides, we could reach the point where we would no longer hear birdsong in the Spring. Another effect was actually making malaria resistant mosquitoes. She testified before the Senate. For this, she was mocked and attacked for being a single woman. Her character was questioned. She was slandered, even though she had made sacrifices to support her widowed mother and sisters through the Great Depression and adopted her orphaned nephew, etc., because she had a good income from her books.
The first Earth Day was not a convenient, fun event on a Saturday or Sunday to remind us to Reuse, Reduce, Recycle (which is a dubious tactic which only slows the path of consumer goods to ever-growing landfills). It was on a Wednesday. Over 20,000,000 Americans took part. No one really knows for sure how many. It was organized and ‘documented’ before the days of the internet or cellphones in schools of all levels. Many turned it into Earth Week, like the University of Minnesota did, with a week-long environmental “teach-in” and fair. I helped organize our Earth Day (April 22) at Carl Sandburg Junior High in Golden Valley, Minnesota. We started by hundreds of us, who normally rode the bus to school, walked and picked up litter as we came in and as we went home. That day, about half of the classes were taught outdoors and the lessons involved environmental, conservation or ecological themes. About 100 of us vowed to permanently abandon the buses and either bicycle or walk for the rest of the school year. This actually did reduce emissions as most of these were students who were those involved in after school activities who would quite often get special activity bus rides home, which now could be eliminated.
Earth Day was the closest thing that the US had ever had to general strike. Pres. Nixon was already under pressure from the Watergate investigation. Earth Day/Week scared him to death. He knew he had to do something about this. By July, he had started the EPA. He knew he could not survive in office if he did not respond to the people on this. DDT was banned. Emission and water purity standards were established. Mileage standards were imposed Speed limits were reduced. Air and water quality dramatically improved. Cancers and other diseases were reduced by millions! Now we have a buffoon in the White House who is trying to undo all of that! And we have a yarn bombing on a Saturday in the park instead of Earth Day.
Rachel Carson was born on May 27, 1907, on her family’s farm near Springdale, PA. She died of complications of breast cancer in her home in Silver Spring, MD, April 14, 1964. This portrait is in my “Heroes” series.
Painting is acrylic on 12″ x 12″ stretched canvas.
Price: $125 plus postage.
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Ernesto Che Guevara was born on June 14, 1928. (My birthday in June 14, 1955.) His early life is documented in the book and movie: “The Motorcycle Diaries”, about his travels from one end of South America to the other on a motorcycle. This trip was formative in his education as a revolutionary. He became a medical doctor first. In 1955, Fidel Castro’s brother Raul introduced them, and he joined the revolution in Cuba. On June 2, 1959, he married Aleida March. After he witnessed what Dulles’ CIA did to dismantle the popularly elected socialist governments of Guatemala and Honduras, he persuaded Harvard educated Fidel Castro that he would need to maintain a benign dictatorship to resist the dirty tricks and subversion of the American government with their interference in other nations’ elections.Perhaps our chickens are coming home to roost.
In 1965, then he joined the revolution in Kinshasa, Congo. In 1966, he joined the revolution in Bolivia. He was captured by the CIA on October 8, 1967, and summarily executed the next day. So much for human rights and due process and The Geneva Convention.
Che was a passionate man. He was in the fight for love of the people, not for personal gain or some dogmatic or idealized view of proving a point. I am sick to death of the communist, socialist and anarchist groups in the US who are full of history nerds and armchair philosophers who don’t give a damn about anyone but themselves. Che gave his life in service to nations. Because of what he did, thousands, perhaps millions of people were given a shot at life who otherwise would not have done.
“If you tremble with indignation at every injustice, then you are a comrade of mine.”
“Let me say, at the risk of seeming ridiculous, that the true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love.” – both by El Che
There was nothing ridiculous about Che’s love for the common people and his passionate struggle to liberate them.
Painting is 12″x12″ acrylic on stretched canvas.
Price: $60 plus postage
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My playmates for the first six years of my life were my sister Sue Ann and our neighbor across the street, David Ericson. They were two years older than I was. I was the youngest of four in my family. David was the youngest of four in his family. There were other children in the neighborhood, but these were my closest friends and constant companions. Our family built a bigger house and moved two miles away in Golden Valley, MN, the summer between kindergarten and first grade, but we stayed in touch. We spent 4th of Julys together and got together around Christmas and did some other outings, as well. We ended up going to the same high school: Robbinsdale Senior High.
When we were little and playing cowboys and Indians, David always managed to get killed right outside his back door. He would lay there for a moment then he would get up and run into the kitchen and pour some ketchup on his face and lie back down; you know, to add bloody realism. The next time we would come by, he would still be lying there, but he would be scraping the ketchup off with potato chips and eating them. You just can’t waste food like that! There were children starving in Africa.
David’s parents, Lester and Lois prayed for our family daily and brought us kids to church when my folks didn’t go, and to vacation Bible school, to their little Bible church in North Minneapolis. Lois particularly prayed for me daily from the time she heard my mom was pregnant with me until the day she died in December, 2008. I played with David’s toys while he was in school and my mom was working for the 1960 Census. The Ericsons’ house was the safest place I knew as a child. Playing with David’s Lincoln Logs in the middle of the living room floor with Mrs. Ericson in the kitchen was as good as life could get.
David grew up to be a serious, well-mannered, Christian, young man. He graduated RHS, Class of 1971. He decided to take a year off to do a short-term missionary assignment with Wickliffe Bible Translators, helping his sister and brother-in-law, Jim and Carol Daggett, in Peru, instead of starting college. While there, he was accompanying a girl on a flight to Quito, to go to a hospital for an emergency surgery. It was Christmas Eve. The flight went down and we did not know for three weeks what had happened. Finally, we learned that only one German girl survived. The plane had broken up in mid-air in a bad storm. Pieces of the fuselage had fallen from the sky. Her mother died in the seat next to her. She was carrying her wedding cake on her lap. That helped save her. A tribe of natives who were known to be cannibals took her in and treated her wounds. She was finally found and rescued. So we lost David. He died on a mission of mercy. He was Les and Lois Ericson’s only son.
In 2000, my sister Sue Ann committed suicide. I just remember being so much happier and four and saying, “Alison, can you help Sue Ann and me cross the street so we can play with David?”
As I painted this portrait, I reminisced of a time before my birth. I recalled Grama Dodier’s life from when she was born as a “half-breed” on the prairie of Minnesota in 1880, to when I interviewed her when I was a 12-year-old in the Spring of 1968. I still have a clear vision of her log cabin and her excitement at her French, trapper dad arriving home after a weeks’ long hunting and trading expedition. I can visualize the scene as freshly now as then of her first vision of a motorized vehicle. It was steam-powered. I asked her if her daughters were flappers during the “Roaring 20s”. She laughed. She told me she helped make Irene’s dress. The times had changed and she and her husband had moved to the city (Minneapolis).
I have no photos of Grama Dodier. She is not a relative, but I carry her memories. She was a neighbor’s (two blocks away) mother. I painted her portrait from 49-year-old memories. It is truly amazing how quickly things have changed. She witnessed the first automobiles and now we were heading to the moon. She was an outcast for being a “half-breed’ as a child and young mother. By the 1950s, no one noticed her race because of her French last name. Her daughters married well. She could pass, but the Blacks and the Native Americans were still struggling in Minnesota.
I learned much from Grama Dodier and was careful to preserve these memories as a living link to the past. It is now 2017, so I have a link going back 137 years.
The painting is acrylic on 12″ x 12″ stretched canvas.
Price: $80 plus postage
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John Winston Ono Lennon (9 October 1940 – 8 December 1980) was a co-founder of The Beatles and was half of one of the most successful songwriting duos of all time with Paul McCartney. Imagine is nothing if not a communist anthem.
For those of us who grew up in the 60s, there are several events that are etched in our minds. Everyone knows where they were when they saw the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show. Everyone knows where they were when they heard the news that John had been shot and killed.
We still have his music and we have lots of work to do.
After the Soviet Union broke up, Abkhazia produced postage stamps with Groucho Marx and John Lennon on them and sold frameable collector sheets with the caption. “The New Marx & Lennon” on the sleeve. I own one. What is funny about this is that both Groucho Marx and John Lennon were Marxists. So I painted a set of portraits of all four of them.
The painting is acrylic on 12″ x 12″ stretched canvas.
Price: $100 plus postage.
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V. I. Lenin (April 22, 1870 – January 21, 1924) was the revolutionary founder of the Marxist Soviet Union in Russia. The Russian Revolution was an ambitious undertaking and the Soviet Union was an amazing experiment. In the US, the cliché is that communism failed, since the USSR fell.That’s funny, since they don’t seem to draw that conclusion about capitalism looking at 17 trillion dollars debt, millions homeless, countless starving, children in poverty, senior citizens with college debt, endless wars, etc.
No. What was accomplished by Lenin and company was amazing! They took a pre-industrial, feudal economy, and dragged it into the 20th century, turning it into a major, industrial and scientific powerhouse. Russia became a leader in medicine, space, agriculture, education, in a few short decades! And they did this for ALL of their people, not just a wealthy élite. So what did the west do? Threaten them with total annihilation, forcing them to waste resources on weapons and defense.
I chose a less familiar photo of Lenin to portray him. We recognize him more readily without the hat, seeing his bald head. I liked the wool worker’s cap better. I thought it better conveyed his heart and the heart of socialism.
Set of 4: Marx & Marx, Lenin & Lennon
After the Soviet Union broke up, Abkhazia produced postage stamps with Groucho Marx and John Lennon on them and sold frameable collector sheets with the caption. “The New Marx & Lennon” on the sleeve. I own one. What is funny about this is that both Groucho Marx and John Lennon were Marxists. So I painted a set of portraits of all four of them.
The painting is acrylic on 12″ x 12″ stretched canvas.
Price: $100 plus postage.
Fill out the form below so we can arrange payment and delivery. I take PayPal, so all credit and debit cards are accepted.
Groucho Marx was the professional name for Julius Henry Marx (October 2, 1890 – August 19, 1977). He was a writer, comedian, singer, stage, movie and television star. He made 13 films with his brothers Chico and Harpo and a few with Zeppo as well. He was a master of the paraprosdokian.
Late in life, Groucho became friends with Elton John and Alice Cooper. He appeared in a production of Jesus Christ: Superstar of Elton John’s. When it came to the crucifixion, he asked if it ended well. He said this would not make his Jewish friends happy.
“Military justice is to justice what military music is to music.”
Set of 4: Marx & Marx, Lenin & Lennon
After the Soviet Union broke up, Abkhazia produced postage stamps with Groucho Marx and John Lennon on them and sold frameable collector sheets with the caption. “The New Marx & Lennon” on the sleeve. I own one. What is funny about this is that both Groucho Marx and John Lennon were Marxists. So I painted a set of portraits of all four of them.
The painting is acrylic on 12″ x 12″ stretched canvas.
Price: $100 plus postage
Fill out the form below so we can arrange payment and delivery. I take PayPal, so all credit and debit cards are accepted.
When one “Bings” Karl Marx, the first thing that comes up is: “Scientist – Karl Marx was a German-born scientist, philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist.” One thing is for certain, a lot of misinformation has been circulated about him and what he taught, in capitalist countries. The first word in the description is the most important, however, and, in the end, science always wins, because it is reality. Science does not play favorites, does not discriminate on who your relatives were or how rich your parents were. Thermonuclear war will kill you just as dead whether you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth or in a mud hut. Global warming will flood you, starve you, burn you, impoverish, kill you, no matter how many billions of dollars you amass. Science is science. Facts are facts. Alt-nothing! It’s time to share! It’s simple justice! It’s human survival. It’s better for all of us. It’s more secure and happier for all of us.
“There must be something rotten in the very core of a social system which increases its wealth without diminishing its misery.” – Karl Marx
Set of Four: Marx & Marx, Lenin & Lennon
After the Soviet Union broke up, Abkhazia produced postage stamps with Groucho Marx and John Lennon on them and sold frameable collector sheets with the caption. “The New Marx & Lennon.” I own one. What is funny about this is that both Groucho Marx and John Lennon were Marxists. So I painted a set of portraits of all four of them.
The painting is acrylic on 12″ x 12″ stretched canvas.
Price: $100 plus postage
Fill out the form below so we can arrange payment and delivery. I take PayPal, so all credit and debit cards are accepted.
Benazir Bhutto (June 21, 1953 – December 27, 2007) was the eleventh prime minister of Pakistan. She was the first modern world leader to give birth while in office. She was the first woman to head a majority Muslim nation. She was a complex character. I painted her because I consider her to be a rare, feminist hero. Malala Yousafzai considers her as one of her heroes and a key role model for her growing up in Pakistan. Benazir was Harvard educated and grateful for it. She had a tough time in her two stretches as prime minister. There were many intrigues, scandals, and attempts on her life. She was assassinated while campaigning for re-election. She fought hard for an independent Pakistan. She was not going to settle for it being a vassal state to the US or being dominated by a nuclear armed India, regardless of with whom that meant she had to deal.
Pakistan, and, indeed, the world, would be a different, and I would surmise a much better place, had Benazir Bhutto not been taken from us so prematurely.
The painting is acrylic on 12″ x 12″ stretched canvas.
Price: $100 plus postage
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Ana Pauker (born Hannah Rabinsohn; December 13, 1893 – June 3, 1960) was called “the most powerful woman in the world” by Time magazine in 1948. She was Romania’s Foreign Minister and the de facto head of the Romanian Communist Party. She was a breast cancer survivor. Her husband, Marcel, was killed for accused of being a Trotskyite in a party purge. They had lived in exile for being communists. She was imprisoned, then exchanged to the Soviet Union, where she trained and became part of the Comintern. When the Red Army entered Romania at the end of World War II, she was there and ready to take leadership as part of the Muscovite faction. She was second in command on the four person Romanian Communist Party Secretariat, but was regarded as the true leader. She was appointed as Foreign Minister, the first woman anywhere in the world to hold such a high level post.
What I find noteworthy about her tenure in these positions is that unlike so many women in positions of power, she did not feel the need to “out piss” the men like so many of the women since her (i.e., Margaret Thatcher, Golda Meier, Indira Gandhi, Hillary Clinton). She maintained friendly relations with Stalin and insisted that she was a Stalinist, yet she maintained that Socialist Doctrine allowed for more democracy, so did not force all of the peasant farmers into collectivization. She allowed more time for the five-year plans, and allowed amnesty for Spanish Civil War and French Resistance veterans. She worked toward healing and reconciliation as a path forward for more Romanians, rather than Stalin’s and later Ceaucescu’s hyper-masculinity. Her way was working. Stalin respected her and let her have her way in Romania.
When Krushchev succeeded Stalin in 1953, purges began throughout the Soviet Union and its satellites. Ana Pauker got scapegoated for the harsh policies that the secretariat had enforced which she had actually opposed. She lost her party membership, but her life was spared and she was given a translation job. She protested her innocence and sued unsuccessfully for her membership back. She was an easy target, since she was a woman and of Jewish ancestry. This was a fatal mistake for Romanian communism. The man they installed, Ceaușescu, to take over leadership in Romania was a megalomaniac and a misogynist, who ruined the country for generations. He outlawed abortions and all forms of birth control. He seized the forests as his own, personal hunting grounds to slaughter bears and other game at his whim.
Ana had another cancer in 1959 which culminated in her death on June 3, 1960.
Marcel and Ana Pauker had three children: Tanio (1921–1922); Vlad (1926-2016); Tatiana (1928–2011). Ana had a fourth child, Masha (born 1932 ), fathered by the Czech Communist Eugen Fried. Masha now lives in France. She adopted a fifth child, Alexandru, in the late 1940s.
The painting is acrylic on 12″ x 12″ stretched canvas.
Price: $100 plus postage
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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 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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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 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
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When one “Bings” Karl Marx, the first thing that comes up is: “Scientist – Karl Marx was a German-born scientist, philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist.” One thing is for certain, a lot of misinformation has been circulated about him and what he taught, in capitalist countries. The first word in the description is the most important, however, and, in the end, science always wins, because it is reality. Science does not play favorites, does not discriminate on who your relatives were or how rich your parents were. Thermonuclear war will kill you just as dead whether you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth or in a mud hut. Global warming will flood you, starve you, burn you, impoverish, kill you, no matter how many billions of dollars you amass. Science is science. Facts are facts. Alt-nothing! It’s time to share! It’s simple justice! It’s human survival. It’s better for all of us. It’s more secure and happier for all of us.
Yes. Marx is a hero of mine. But, if he had not written what he had, someone else would have. It was inevitable. It is science. Like Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” He was a Marxist, also. That’s why the government killed him.
There is a new Socialist movement growing. Capitalism has failed fantastically. The masses, especially the disenfranchised, educated young people are rising up to claim their place and their fair share of the fruit of their forebears investment in infrastructure and technology for the common good.
The painting is acrylic on 16″ x 20″ stretched canvas.
Price: $100 plus postage
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This painting is the latest in my “Heroes” series and my first with two people together. It is based on the famous photograph taken of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara as they were preparing for their triumphal march into Havana in 1959 to take control of the central government after the corrupt Batista regime, along with their US carpet-baggers had fled. Castro managed to not only hold the country together, but transform it into the most stable, egalitarian, healthy country in the western hemisphere for over 50 years, despite over 600 American CIA assassination attempts, a draconian trade embargo, a failed, US led invasion. He eliminated childhood hunger, homelessness and rampant gambling. He instituted universal, free healthcare and free education through university. Cuba has a lower infant mortality rate and longer life expectancy than the US despite spending 1/5 as much on medicine. They send more doctors around the world to help developing nations and in crisis situations than the US does, though they are relatively tiny.
Fidel Castro said, “Capitalism is using its money. We socialists are throwing it away!” What he meant by that is that they weren’t using it to make more money. They were spending it on the people. All the profits from the factories and industries went to the people. There has been scarcity in Cuba, but no one has gone hungry. No one has gone uneducated. They have the highest literacy rate in the hemisphere at 99%. No one has gone without top-notch medical care. It is a medical tourism destination! The scarcity is because of the lack of trade because of the bullying of the US. In the US, when business is bad, the ones who work the hardest are the first to suffer! Not so in Cuba! Furthermore, Fidel wanted to have a free and open democracy. Honduras had tried that. They elected a socialist. Our CIA, under Dulles, went and overthrew him, and reinstalled fascism. So Che persuaded Fidel to maintain a benign dictatorship.
Fidel Castro was born on August 13, 1926 and died on November 25, 2016, proving once and for all that the best revenge is a long life.
Ernesto Che Guevara was born on June 14, 1928. (My birthday is June 14, 1955.) His early life is documented in the book and movie: “The Motorcycle Diaries”, about his travels from one end of South America to the other on a motorcycle. This trip was formative in his education as a revolutionary. He became a medical doctor first. In 1955, Fidel’s brother Raul introduced them, and he joined the revolution in Cuba. On June 2, 1959, he married Aleida March. He stayed in Cuba until 1965; then he joined the revolution in Kinshasa, Congo. In 1966, he joined the revolution in Bolivia. He was captured by the CIA on October 8, 1967, and summarily executed the next day. So much for human rights and due process and Geneva Convention.
These two are unlikely heroes of mine, since I am a pacifist. As Winston Churchill said, “Consistency is the bugbear of small minds!” The result of what they did cannot be questioned. They improved the lives of millions of people and literally made hundreds of thousands more lives happen. Vision, combined with action, blended with stubborn love for common people. Heroes indeed!
“If you tremble with indignation at every injustice, then you are a comrade of mine.”
“Let me say, at the risk of seeming ridiculous, that the true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love.” – both by El Che
Painting is acrylic on 24″ x 18″ stretched canvas.
Price: $150 plus postage
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