TWO WORLDS NEVER COMPLETE

While one newsworthy event continues to unfold, another, more full of wonder, has occurred in San Francisco. A young mountain lion has been wandering the city's streets, hiding in a park during the day, visible only at night and early in the morning, lost and frightened by the city. San Francisco's Animal Care and Control and local park rangers responded to citizens who captured the lion on their phones. They arrived to sedate the lion and move it away from the danger of a city. Their professional concern and action delivers a sharp contrast to what we all have watched on media in the last couple of weeks.

I feel scattered from watching the persistent news, as if we are living in two different worlds right now. One life, so normal, filled with laundry, walks, friends, reading, while the other continues to be filled with the horror at the actions of a group of overzealous federal agents.

While all the news continues to tumble out of our TV, a friend asked me for a copy of a small poster I had made several years ago. I took it out, decided to add to the design of the poster and try different lettering versions of the phrase that I had written at the start of the pandemic. The original one said,

"Together: A Word That Means So Much More Today Than Before. 

Together: By Staying Apart, We Find New Ways to Connect."

I made the original in two versions, one using a monoline font and the other with a font created by Ben Shahn, an artist/activist from the 20th Century, most famous for his posters about freedom and justice.

Today, since the pandemic no longer haunts us in the same way, I've changed the wording, dropping the last words after the second "Together." I added photos of the Earth as well.

Draft of new version

I hadn't worked with either font for a while, so I started by practicing with a monoline font using a dip pen with a bent, rounded end. I wanted the color to change as I wrote and so I practiced that. 

"Embrace Life" by M. Slavin

I switched, to Shahn's alphabet, my favorite, quirky lettering. I had studied Shahn's style and read his book, Shape of Content long ago. He, like so many artists, felt deeply about events that occurred in his lifetime and his works reflect that concern. We can think of other artists, such as Jim FitzPatrick, who designed the Che Guevara poster, and Shepard Fairey, who created the Obama and Harris posters in a similar style, and many others who put a stamp on the events that trouble or electrify the whole world.

Reworking this image reminded me that a piece of artwork is never really finished, just put aside for a while, like the circular nature of history. The painter JMW Turner would walk into a gallery showing his work, and paint over parts that he didn't like. When I paint in watercolor, I usually find a good part in any painting, but sometimes the rest I paint over with white gesso, leaving the exposed part ready for further development. 

Gesso over Watercolor , unfinished

Sometime that piece will sit for a long time until something will click, and will develop into something entirely different from the original.  I think of people trying to whitewash our history now and know that the all sides of the story need to be recorded and repeated so that we can learn from our mistakes as well as honor our best actions and beliefs.

Check out Shepard Fairey's work here:

https://www.artnet.com/artists/shepard-fairey/2

Jim FitzPatrick here:

https://jimfitzpatrick.com

Mexican poster artists here:

https://hechoamano.org/show/hecho-a-mano-victoria-selected-political-prints-from-mexico-1910-1960 

Ben Shahn here:

https://www.wikiart.org/en/ben-shahn

Video of release of mountain lion:  

https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/mountain-lion-release-video-21320397.php?utm_content=hed&sid=654d0f335351ce63aaf87995&ss=A&st_rid=6096cf18-25ea-46af-982f-3673ab33621f&utm_source=marketing&utm_medium=email&utm_term=engagement&utm_campaign=sfcn%20%7C%20membership%20program%20benefits

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Words spoken by Alex Pretti at the deathbed of a patient at the VA hospital:

Yesterday, after Alex Pretti’s death, the son of a man Pretti had cared for at the VA hospital published a video of Pretti speaking at his father’s deathbed. “Today we remember that freedom is not free,” Pretti said. “We have to work at it, nurture it, protect it, and even sacrifice for it. May we never forget and always remember our brothers and sisters who have served so that we may enjoy the gift of freedom. So in this moment, we remember and give thanks for their dedication and selfless service to our nation in the cause of our freedom. In this solemn hour, we [give] them our honor, and our gratitude.”