Times like These
Times Like These
I painted this for SF Muni’s public art project, Hidden Gems of San Francisco. Chosen artists create pieces to be displayed on one hundred city buses in response to five poems by renowned Bay Area poets.
Times Like These was my reply to a poem called "The Antidote to Fascism is Poetry" by Matthew Zapruder. This was my interior vision of a thicket of magical trees, an imaginary place where we are all seen and heard: a shelter, a sanctuary, a safe harbor of some kind.
What I found surprising was that while the visual artists involved were expressly cautioned not to submit any political art, somehow a poem with a name like this could sneak by. I was so pleased to see that they were allowing artists to give some voice to the resistance building for the last number of years. Zapruder’s piece obliquely made my thoughts return to the Adrienne Rich poem that I love so much, "What Kind of Times are These.”
This painting is a continuation of the conversation I am having with both Zapruder’s and Rich’s poems. Rich asked with hushed and whispery urgency what kind of times she was bearing witness to. I am inquiring in return, because a great deal of what I see in human behavior is a cipher to me.
Watching the creep of the worst of history insinuate itself into daily life until the catastrophic seemed quotidian and the taboo commonplace has been utterly exhausting. We’ve spent too long at the edge of dread. Color, joyous color, is my act of resistance.
I painted this for SF Muni’s public art project, Hidden Gems of San Francisco. Chosen artists create pieces to be displayed on one hundred city buses in response to five poems by renowned Bay Area poets.
Times Like These was my reply to a poem called "The Antidote to Fascism is Poetry" by Matthew Zapruder. This was my interior vision of a thicket of magical trees, an imaginary place where we are all seen and heard: a shelter, a sanctuary, a safe harbor of some kind.
What I found surprising was that while the visual artists involved were expressly cautioned not to submit any political art, somehow a poem with a name like this could sneak by. I was so pleased to see that they were allowing artists to give some voice to the resistance building for the last number of years. Zapruder’s piece obliquely made my thoughts return to the Adrienne Rich poem that I love so much, "What Kind of Times are These.”
This painting is a continuation of the conversation I am having with both Zapruder’s and Rich’s poems. Rich asked with hushed and whispery urgency what kind of times she was bearing witness to. I am inquiring in return, because a great deal of what I see in human behavior is a cipher to me.
Watching the creep of the worst of history insinuate itself into daily life until the catastrophic seemed quotidian and the taboo commonplace has been utterly exhausting. We’ve spent too long at the edge of dread. Color, joyous color, is my act of resistance.
hello, world
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What color is loneliness? Does catastrophe taste like overripe fruit or salt? What does the breath of fear smell like? I hold my hand out to you in the dark. Catch me, catch me, please. Look! We are as far apart as stars.
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Yarn, historically used in women’s work, tempers objects which have prototypically masculine or violent connotations. For me, the material and the wrapping motion become both the act of accessing memory and the creation of hope.
As I wind and unwind, spool and unspool, I am reliving moments in life and thinking of possibility, of the future. Working with fiber lets my hands bear burdens for me, permits me to fumble around in search of new insight, and guides me in searching for answers I might otherwise never find. |
Tools, In Sheep's Clothing
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Wendy Ackrell 2021