America's Most Wanted #5

Her name is Michelle.  She is seven years old.  She has a purse with hearts all over it.  It is really cold in the high desert at night so she is  bundled up in a hot-pink hoodie sweatshirt with a long brown wool jacket buttoned up over it.  Her mother has put her hair up in a neat ponytail.  But here is the big thing...despite the fact that she and her mother have been deported from the United States, despite the fact that she and her mother are living in a women's shelter, despite the fact that she gets two meals a day in a cold, cement floored dining room with 130 adults squished in at long tables...she exuded 'security in the face of insecurity'.  I am haunted by her trusting, calm demeanor. 

People With No Names - The Undocumented #64

This 8" x 18" oil on museum board shows three immigrant attemptees, who have been caught and deported back to Nogales. I don't know how many times they have tried to enter the U.S. The average,remember, is about four times until success or death. And many times, the attemptees are so exhausted, cold and hungry that they just give themselves up when they see a border patrol person. (Because, often their coyotes "paid guides" have lied to them about the length and arduousness of the journey in order to get their money.) Despite the fact that it is expressly, legally forbidden to sneak into the U.S., the tempting serpent keeps whispering that there is lots of food, and work, and money in the rico El Norte. Wouldn't you listen, too, if you had nothing to lose?

People With No Names - The Undocumented #30

This 24"x36" oil on canvas image is of a man who I met in Nogales. His story is a good news/bad news. The bad news is: this husband, father, and agricultural worker was deported and cannot rejoin his U.S. citizen wife and child. His family has had to move in with relatives in California, as they wait and hope for his return. The good news is: He is alive. He is not one of the 200+ people who die in the desert each year. He is deported, but alive. There is still 'possibility' in his future. Re-unifiction of families and economic well-being are the two main reasons for immigration.

People With No Names - The Undocumented #24

This is a mother & daughter who have been deported and are waiting in the women's refuge, trying to decide their next move. I was fortunate to see a few real Gauguin paintings of his big, solid Tahitian women this past weekend; and I realized that these two women have the same strong peaceful bearing. I will be trying to do them justice this next week. Oh and I decided to paint these brave women BIG, so their dimension is 40x60".