This painting by Pam Diulio and Karen Jenkins, depicts real people. The Doctor and ICU nurse work at the U of M Hospital. The nurse who cares for with Covid Patients is Karen’s daughter; the fireman is from Monroe and the police officer is Pam’s nephew.
Pam and Karen’s painting reminds us how artists can embed and strengthen ideas in the minds of the public. We can create images, whether direct or allusive in support of all the heroes: the visible and the invisible, the obvious choices and the unsung, and see where we can do our part in ensuring they all get their due in appreciation, respect and compensation! Of course the greatest respect we can offer is in not piling more work onto them.
Few of us will be sorry to see 2020 dwindle in the rear-view mirror, but there are some things about it we should grasp onto. There was the clean, quiet April and May, when we could wander in the street, watching kids doing wheelies on their bikes and hearing birdsong clearly. Then there was the national uprising following the killing of George Floyd – not a unique instance, except in the overdue response to it, sparking a national conversation about racism. There was the discovery that not everyone needs to commute, and there’s no excuse not to hire people whose disability makes commuting impossible of just inconvenient.
Artists and people connected with the Arts seem to be in the forefront of responding to these 2020 events, wanting to run with the moment and enter a new era. We at Huron River Art Collective held an exhibition, Racial Dialogs Through Art, viewable online. If you feel inspired to send words or pictures or a combination to keep the discussion around race, equity and climate change at the forefront, — or if you want to talk about something else — we’d love to hear from you.
In January, the prolific sculptor Barbara Melnik Carson will be our speaker at 7pm on Jan 18th Register Here for the zoom event.
New name, The Current
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— Sophie Grillet, Communications Chair sophiegrillet at gmail
Huron River Art Collective Blog 