Poverty, inequality, healthcare, racism, sexism, a general hatred for those who pray or love or define themselves differently from traditional Western norms, will probably be with us for the next foreseeable future. Perhaps in FAR worse forms than before.  What will affect the world beyond American borders are war and climate change denial. I am not denying the fact that present and past administrations have been warmongering, more so perhaps than we are aware of. I also thought the least desirable aspect of HRC was her hawkish inclinations. Yet the thought that an unpredictable narcissist with fascistic leanings and a coterie of sycophants has the finger on the nuclear button gives me nightmares.

For paintings I chose one of my favorite and one of my least favorite painters. The former captures the horror of war like no one else. Otto Dix painted The War between 1929 and 1932.

More on it here:http://www.skd.museum/en/special-exhibitions/archive/otto-dix-der-krieg-war/

The latter artist, Anselm Kiefer, is discussed in the link below (take it with a grain of salt) but painted something for a Paul Celan poem that I really like.

Anselm Kiefer’s Heady and Heavy-Handed Behemoths

As photographic counterpoints I chose portraits I took of our young women and men who will be the potential canon fodder should war be part of the Trump presidency. I, of course, have no access to those who will be killed by drones, bombs, mines or nuclear missiles in the rest of the world. And so, so young.

I can wrap my mind around the fact that men feel threatened by women being their boss, taking their jobs instead of their orders. A shift towards equality always hurts those who were in dominant positions.  I cannot understand, however, how women can long for a return to a status quo that celebrates their subjugation, narrows their independence, controls their bodies. Making decisions that give other, competing women the finger.

Maybe the fantasy held by anxious, disenfranchised males that a strongman will reinstate control and status at large is reflected in the fantasy of women that their prince will come through the house door, no longer angry and punitive with his place in the world restored.

Let’s look at those who never bought into that and held their own in a misogynistic world. I am linking to an article about an extraordinarily strong woman I had never heard about. What a discovery.

368 Years Before Hillary, This Trailblazing Feminist Demanded Her Right to Vote

Then there are portraits of those who shaped their households or their surrounding culture or their countries’ fate by various forms of leadership.

Raphael Soyer,  Golda Meir (1975)

Hannah Arendt in a sketch seen in VOGUE….

Muhammad Yungai  Angela Davis 

Barbara Berney Indira Ghandi (2010)

As for photographic portraits, here are some of my own role models when it comes to fierceness and determination: those who are or have been fighting cancer and excel in competitive dragon boat races.

Jan Mijtens Portrait of Margaretha van Raephorst with Servant (detail) Holland (c. 1650)

There are people who do want to turn the clock back. We knew they existed. We did not know how many of them, we lived in the bubble of our comfortable existence and lacked imagination just as much as contact with Trump voters or contact with those who feared his win all along. We perhaps slung around terms like white identity politics, but honestly had no clue. At our own peril. Worse, at the peril of those who pay a higher price, here and in the world at large. Privilege permitted ignorance.

Joseph Wright A Conversation Between Girls (1770)

I call those who do want to turn the clock back the immoral majority. Today’s oil portraits depict Black children who were servants, slaves or toys and, most of all, commodities that could be bought and sold.  The paintings might stimulate the phantasies of racists, even when they hesitate to admit it. Although obviously, that shame has evaporated for some, now that Sauron, who currently has the ring, allows them to make their views public.

Peter Lely Lady Elizabeth Noel Wriothesley (1660)

Pierre Mignard Portrait of Louise de Kérouaille

The photographic portraits, on the other hand, hopefully show the vision of the rest of us: the strength, innocence, potential of some of the most vulnerable segments of our society – something we, the moral minority, HAVE to protect.   

The images come from my work with an after school program in North Portland that is comprised of African immigrant and African American kids. They learn dancing and drumming, get instructed in their cultural history and bits of language, and are part of a whole that structures their lives and sustains them. They also get food during their rehearsals at the Salvation Army Building.

And here I am breaking protocol of some kind or another, I am sure. A fundraiser for this group is once again upon us. If you feel inclined to join me in support of these children,  go to http://www.kukatonon.org/donate-2/

and help us out.
If you feel irritated by my plea I have just one answer: Trump made me do it.