Back to Kehinde Wiley

Well I initially was not going to talk about this painting shown above by Kehinde Wiley, mainly because I am not black.  I did not feel that I could properly address it without my own biases getting in the way.  Honestly this painting does make me uncomfortable as a white woman.  Some of the negative feedback I saw online related to President Obama's portrait had to do with Wiley also having painted the above painting, so I thought maybe I should talk about it here (not that I have that many readers).  I also thought I should talk about because some of the best advice I have gotten on art is you need to really be looking at the stuff that makes you angry or upset, and think about why it does that.  This painting upsets me for two main reasons.


The first being the most obvious of the violence towards the white woman and the anger level of it towards the white woman.  There is something here though that is important to remember this is a painting not a photograph, no white women were killed to produce this image.

The same cannot be said for the above image.  It is a photograph of very real violence towards a black person.  Many white people tend to fall into the mindset that slavery and only slavery was the big issue with black people.  I don't think many people realize that even following the Civil War lynching was a big thing, and there were white photographers making money off of it.  Not only would lynching participants buy the photos from them, the photographers were also selling them as postcards and sending them all over the country.  I was shocked to learn that it did not become illegal to send these postcards through the US mail until the 1950s.  It is insane to me that it took that long.  It is also insane to me how many people don't know this.  Another grisly detail about this is that lynching participants would often keep hair or teeth from the victim framed with the photo.  So is me being angry over pretend violence really justified.


The other thing that makes me angry is that presumably the painting is meant to be sort of a role reversal.  I may be weird, but I dislike the thought that maybe I am being viewed as a spoiled fairy princess.  I have worked hard in my life at less then glamorous jobs, I drink beer, and honestly I am also quite gassy.  None of these are things I attribute to fairy princesses.  I think on some level this trips up many white Americans, as most white Americans do not have Donald Trump's wealth.  Yes I have worked crap jobs in my life, but I probably do still have an advantage because I am white.  Years ago I had a temp job at this gun accessories factory.  I had hit it off with this Hmong girl, we were chatting away, and being airheaded 20 something year olds we left the building we were in a few minutes  before quitting time.  The Hmong girl was fired for it, but I was not even though I was guilty of the exact same thing.  When I first started at the hospital I used to see it a bit with the doctors.  When I first started I had to on more than one occasion inform the doctor that their patient had died (or less morbidly when the nurses transfer their patient somewhere else), when they would come to the room looking for the patient, and all they would find is me cleaning the room.  It seemed to me that it happened more with minority doctors, so not claiming to be a saint here (maybe makes up for times I have sucked) I reported it on our Employee feedback thing.  A lady from HR did talk to me about it, and I have not had to tell any doctor of a patient's death since.  I have asked newer  more regular hospital workers and they have not had to either.  I am not sure if this is due to improved HUC performance, or if Epic has anything to do with it (I don't think we were using Epic then).  To get back on topic it is very easy for poor white folks to fall into the I work hard and try to do right, and then forget or not even realize the times being white has been beneficial to them. 

Mental Illness & Guns

I have talked a little before about having schizophrenia.  I guess I just wanted to comment that this atmosphere of blaming mass shootings on mental illness really sucks, and really is such a cop out.  The only thing that it does is create stigma against people, and believe me I have received very little help.  I have paid off my medical debt and much of my student loans by picking up in the hospital.  One time I agreed to pick up as an early morning float, and ended up getting placed in Peds.  This is not an area I know that well, and I tend to struggle with figuring out what I am supposed to do (it is also very different from every other part of the hospital).  Anyways at somepoint I noticed two pediatricians looking at me with absolute panic on their faces.  Then a little latter one of them telling the resident doctors that it was probably alright as I did not have a gun.  Also had a nurse call me a bitch that day, no clue what that was about.  So fucking offensive, probably when I was at my worst point with my mental illness I was working a lot in the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit (where the babies are))  I ended up in the ER and then in the psychward, but I did nothing to those babies, and again that was the time in my life I would rate as my worst.  Granted I did not like the area and had the psychiatrist tell my supervisor not to put me there, but that was due to the 4am start time for the area.  It had destroyed my ability to sleep, which was not helping with my mental health issues.  Again no shooting I got myself out of working the area.  Reason why that doctor is so offensive to me.  I mean did he do anything to help me, no, all he did was ostracize me over my health condition.  Really I think that might count as a HIPPA violation.  I mentioned once to the psychiatrist, who got me started on the meds at work that if she asked around the other doctors would tell her that when I work nights in the clinic I talk to the voices.  She said they wouldn't because doctors are not supposed to gossip about that stuff, it is a violation.  That is also a load of bullshit.  One time I had a doctor throw me into a loop of questioning if the voices were real, and then in turn why Aam I taking meds with dangerous side effects for it.  All because he randomly came up to me and said something mildly related to what I had been talking about one night in the clinic.  As near as I could tell I was by myself, and that particular doctor does not work  in my area in the clinic that was why I was so confused.  But I think the answer is doctors gossip.

Presidential Portraits

I would like to begin by saying that I do like some of Kehinde Wiley's work.  There are some things going on in the president's portrait that were not to my taste.  I have seen some very disgusting worthless comments in my facebook feed about this painting, and I hope my criticism does not come off like those comments.  Wiley did an excellent job rendering the president, honestly he's a better painter than what I will probably ever be.  The thing that gets me is really the lack of negative space.  Granted his pieces tend to have intense pattern work, but in other work I have looked at by him there is more spacing in the background pattern work.  I also think compositionally that the eye moves that well through it.  I mean if you drop thinking that it is the president and plant life, and just look at it as blobs of color.  Then you have a reddish brown spot contained largely in a field green, and the brown doesn't really continue anywhere else, so that your eye moves easily around.
I think Wiley is more successful in this painting.                                                                                          I actually really like Amy Sherald's painting of Michelle Obama.  I actually feel like the Obamas were the most elegant first family we have had in recent times.  They blow the Trumps out of the water, and they also blew Bush family out of the water.  I think the Michelle Obama painting really shows that elegance in its simplicity.  Sherald makes excellent use of the negative space.  I think she also goes back a little in art history with the big skirt.  Lots of paintings of important white women through history with the big skirt.  Sherald does this in a very modern way though.                                                                                                              Both artists did an excellent job on the paintings.  They are both very different from what you expect from pesidential portraits.  I don't ever remember presidential paintings getting as much attention as what these have.  Nothing but a good thing.  I think they got some people who would not normally look at art to look at art.

Frozen River Film Festival

I tried out the being a artist vendor at the Frozen River Film Festival at Winona State.  We were in the lobby of Science building, which had some beautiful design work.  They had us circled around this many pointed star bench dias thing with a star map on it.  On the floor around that was a circle with symbols in it.  I think they were replacing the zodiac signs with symbols representing the different branches of science.  There was what looked like a chemical equation and a plant close to me.  It was kind of hard to see the full thing though due to tables and chairs.                                                                               I went in with the attitude that if I made back the cost of being a vendor I would be happy.  Well I did that and made a profit.  I had drawings, prints, and knitting for sale.  The knitting was the big seller.  My two big buyers I think were a mother daughter duo.  The mother was recovering from cancer.  She bought a baby alpaca and merino wool hat from me.  It was made from the same yarn I used on the scarf I have bragged about here elsewhere.  Decadently soft.  Maybe I should have just given it to her, but they couldn't believe my prices were so low.  The daughter actually gave me an extra $20 because she said I wasn't charging enough.  I also got some compliments from people saying they liked the colors.  That one actually really meant something to me.  I gravitate to color a lot when I look at art, but I often feel like I fall short of where I would like to be on that as an artist.  Had a couple anti wool people.  Unfortunately the commercial clothing industry uses cheap nasty wool, but wool can actually be very soft (merino wool in particular).  She never even bothered to stop and touch and see.  She said on her second pass that she was not allergic she just didn't like it.