People With No Names - The Undocumented #94

This is 24" x 24" oil on board.  As I looked at this image I realized that the mother appears in her gesture to be 'giving a benediction' or 'blessing' her baby.  Perhaps, the act of immigration could be seen as a benediction or blessing on the immigrant's children/family.  "May the Lord bless you and keep you...as I go out into the wilderness to find work...until we are reunited again."

People With No Names - The Undocumented #93

This is 30" x 30" oil on stretched canvas.  I am reading the new Joan Didion book, "Blue Nights".  In one chapter she discusses the fact that her one, adopted, "beautiful baby girl" is perhaps privileged.  She recounts that her "beautiful baby girl" had 60 dresses.  (She counted them).  Didion changed the baby's dress four times "on the afternoon the State of California social worker made her mandated visit to observe the 'candidate for adoption' in the home environment."  Her house-cleaner, laundress (of the 60 dresses), and nanny, Aurcelia, had been prepped ahead of time NOT to speak to the social worker,  and to busy herself watering the garden.  Didion writes, "The thought of an unstructured encounter between Arcelia and a State of California social worker had presented spectral concerns from the outset...what if the social worker were to notice Arcelia spoke only Spanish?  What if the social worker were to happen into the question of Arcelia's papers?  What would the social worker put in her report if she devined that I was entrusting the perfect baby to an undocumented alien?"  Didion goes on in the next chapter to acknowledge that her "beautiful baby girl" DID, perhaps, have a privileged life;  but "Ordinary childhoods in Los Angeles very often involve someone speaking Spanish".  Okay,  I have thought a lot about the ways in which undocumented people harvest our produce, process our meat, and do myriad menial chores both inside and out of our homes.  But until now,   it had not occured to me that these 'unseen' laborers also contribute greatly to the cultural life of this nation!  How many artists have been able to continue their work because an undocumented person "picked up all the slack" so that their employers could continue to work?  I, for one, was struck with thanksgiving for 'Arcelia' in Joan Didion's life.  Because of this undocumented helpmate,  Joan Didion was able to continue to write her luminous prose!!!

People With No Names - The Undocumented #92

This 16" x 20" oil on canvas is another 'portrait' of an immigrant who blends into the landscape.  I am using a 'gridded out' way of approaching the subject matter to think about the disjointed and disconnected way that immigration is being approached in this country.  For one thing, individual states  claiming frustration with the federal government's inaction  have enacted their own particular laws to address a nationwide situation.  Alabama has enacted Draconian laws that have caused undocumented immigrants to withdraw their children from school, flee the state and leave crops rotting in the fields.  The governor of Alabama says that he believes his new law will put his roughly 10% unemployed Alabamans back to work.  Unfortunately the unemployed "documented" U.S. citizens have declined the arduous, backbreaking labor...hence the crops are rotting in the fields,  the price of all produce goes up...food is more expensive for the employed, the unemployed, the documented and undocumented.  Oh and all those little kids are not getting an education...disconnect.

People With No Names - The Undocumented #91

I have done two new paintings, (16" x 20" oil on canvas), and I have been thinking about undocumented immigrants and that series of childrens' books "Where's Waldo?"  Waldo books encourage children to search among crowd scenes for a tiny "Waldo" who is always dressed the same and easily recognizable...presumably these books really encourage visual literacy/careful observation.  In this painting there is an undocumented man doing landscape work.  He is barely distinguishable from his surroundings.  And that's the way he wants it.  He does not want you to identify him and pick him out.

People With No Names - The Undocumented #90

Today in mass our first reading was from Exodus 22:21.  It said, "You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt."  So I was thinking about the universality of being "the stranger" in any given situation or place.  And I remembered this painting/copy that I did to study Masaccio's, "Expulsion of Adam and Eve".  They are being driven out of the only homeland that they know.  And I thought of how often people will ONLY go to new places (physically or psychologically) if they are forced to.  Things have to be really bad, to choose to leave everything you know.  You are quite literally DRIVEN out of your home.  And in the midst of that tremendous physical and psychological dislocation...those of us who are not (at this moment) "the stranger" have a choice to make:  extend kindness or make a hard situation harder.

Works in Progress # 9

This is an oil on stretched canvas 30" x 40".  I am trying to capture the 'Eden-like' quality of the little pocket garden that is just outside my studio doors.  There is not a lot of upkeep;  and the fountain turns this fabulous 'pond-scum green' on a regular basis...but still,  it is very compelling.

People With No Names - The Undocumented #89

This is a 12" x 18" oil on foam-core.  The subject is a gardener,  who I recently interviewed as he was working on the grounds of the walled-in, one city-block area of an historic inn, in Tucson, AZ.  The huge grounds are very lush, beautifully cared for, and require constant, labor-intensive attention (in order to achieve the 'effortless', unchanging serenity of the place).  It is a large cocoon of subdued nature,  which has long been a haven for those captains of industry who can afford under-stated, old world pampering.  It is soothing and lovely.  Everything is under control, you can relax.  Which brings us to the gardener.  He is perfect for this place.  He does not speak English (he will not be chattering at guests).   He prefers to be behind-the-scenes, as he may or may not be documented to be in the U.S.  He is very grateful to have this job (as he explained to me in Spanish) because they let him eat food there, and all the free soda he wants.  He is used to very manual grooming of plants...his work ethic dovetails perfectly with the tedious work required to give this place the sense that you are on the grounds of a very large private home.    

People With No Names - The Undocumented #88

This 8' x12" oil on board is another reflection on whether there is room in our hearts and minds for the foreigner/stranger/immigrant...or like the Governor of Alabama,  we want the toughest laws in the country to "keep them out' and 'root them out of our midst'.  Not only does Gov. Robert Bentley's new law require people to "show papers" to prove they are "legal",  his new law "requires officials in K-12 public schools to determine whether students are illegal immigrants".   In other words, teachers, as well as policemen will be required to act as immigration agents.  Officials claim that there will NOT be racial profiling.  Not that long ago, in the southern U.S.,  free blacks were required to show papers to verify their status as non-slaves.  I guess it wasn't the color of their skin that made people question their 'status'...I guess they just looked like people who should be slaves.  Just like some people look like they should be 'illegal'.

People With No Names - The Undocumented #87

This watercolor of the single chair is a metaphor for the prevailing mood in much of the country.  Many people and government officials feel that there is not room for anyone to 'pull another chair up to the table'.  Wonderful,  informative daughter (from yesterday's post) just told me that the Oregon House of Representatives could only muster 26 of the 31 needed votes to move a bill to the floor that would  allow kids, who have been raised in this country, to pay in-state tuition at community and state colleges.  The 26 Democrats all voted "Yes" to the bill...and then all of the Republican Representatives just let the Bill's time run out.  So technically, they didn't vote AGAINST it, and they are not saying you can't get an education...you just need to come up with a formidable amount of money.  There is a Spanish saying,  "There is always room for one more, everyone just takes a little less".   Another daughter told me recently that when you clear the furniture and clutter out of a room,  people have the urge to dance.  Let's make space for others...and dance.

People With No Names - The Undocumented #86

I am not sure that this painting is finished... but it is a series called 'The Other End of the Pool'.
 The two chairs make me think about this wonderful thing that Father Don preached to us two weeks ago.  He said, "En la mesa del Senor hay bastante espacia por todos"  (At the table of the Lord,  there is space for all.)  My daughter just explained to me the idea of "The Social Contract",   that she learned about in her philosophy class.  It is an idea/agreement in society that "this is HOW it is,  this is HOW WE DO THINGS,  this is how we have ALWAYS done things.  It may not be best for the dignity of every individual in society,  it may not INCLUDE every individual in our society,  but by and large the ruling majority is comfortable".  Then, along comes a "Moral Hero" who says, "I am going to go against the prevailing social contract, in order to do what is right for individual dignity".  (Think Dorothy Day, Cesar Chavez, Martin Luther King Jr., the Freedom Riders, The Stonewall Insurrection)  Today we have an opportunity to offer disenfranchised, undocumented people a seat at the table.  We have an opportunity to treat immigrants with dignity and respect.  We have an opportunity to lift them up in prayerful support...not so they become more like us...so they become fully who God means them to be.

People With No Names - The Undocumented #85

Okay, this 8 x 12" oil on board seems weird for my series about immigrants,  but let me try to connect it.  I see these beautiful swimming pools all over Arizona.  They are feasts for the eyes and the body...to see and be dipped in beautiful cool water on a hot day.  Who wouldn't want that?  Water is  symbol and sustenance of life.   Whole 'pools' of water are available to some,  while others are dying of thirst (literally) walking through the scorching desert between Mexico and the U.S. to find work to feed their families.

why i paint what i paint #22

This 24" x 24" oil on canvas is a painting of my painting partner and me...painting.  I am very happy with the fragmented, unfinished nature of the image.  I am stunned over and over, how much more 'realistically' this way of mark-making conveys the truth of a thing, story,  person than the very crisp, realistic, finished work.  I think it has something to do with the 'river-ish' nature of our lives.  The minute we step in to the water...THAT water has moved on.

People With No Names - The Undocumented #84

This is the same family constellation, except with color.  The young woman (oldest daughter)
who is third from left, has been meticulously managing her father's care since his cancer was discovered 6 months ago.  She has a loose-leaf notebook full of his billing documents, and a loose-leaf notebook on all his treatments, medications, and doctor's orders.  She looms large in this painting, because she is a tireless and cheerful presence in her family.  My husband and I are struck that this young woman would make a wonderful nurse...to be a resource for our WHOLE community... not just her family.  Alas,  she does not have documentation that would aid  her in getting an education.   How can we equip all people to use their gifts,  regardless of their ethnicity or origin?  How can we view people as potential assets and resources?

FOOD FOR THOUGHT:  "Every modern culture that we know of is a composite.  It is 'mestizo' made up of disparate elements,  which nonetheless form an integrated whole.  The cultural frontier is at the heart of every human grouping, every individual.  A human grouping---like any other living organism---cannot survive except by confronting the unknown, the unexpected.  It must re-form its identity at the threshold of every new encounter.  It is engaged in a ceaseless effort of absorption, assimilation, and transmutation---of symbols, images, modes of existence.  To try to arrest this movement at any given point---whether from nostalgia over the past or the dream of a sirenic utopia---is to condemn it to sclerosis and death."   Jacques Audinet (Institut Catholique, Paris)

People With No Names - The Undocumented #83

          This oil on canvas is an under-painting of the immigrant who is dying of pancreatic cancer.  There are those who begrudge him the medical care he has gotten...because that is "American medical care that is meant for American citizens. i.e.  He is using resources that are not meant for him".   He came over with his two daughters to pose for me.   In my living room, they were just a group of people whose lives were marked with uncertainty and gratitude that their father had /was experiencing the "milagro" (miracle) of living so long past his dire diagnosis.  They are very thankful for their long good by and the ability to plan for when he is no longer with them.          
          I just read about the Pope speaking with 12 astronauts circling Earth.  One of the astronauts is Mark Kelly.  His wife, a congresswoman,  was shot in the head while attempting to connect with her constituents on Jan.8, 2011 at a Safeway grocery store in Tucson, Arizona.  The Pope said that, "It must be obvious to you that we all live together on one Earth and how absurd it is that we fight and kill each other."  Kelly told the pope that, "Borders cannot be seen from space",  and noted that,  "Down on Earth, people usually fight for resources.  At the space station, solar power provides unlimited energy, and if those technologies could be adapted more on Earth, we could possibly reduce some of that violence."

why i paint what i paint #21

     I am reading a 20 yr old book that I stumbled upon at my local University Bookstore.  It is titled BORDERLANDS/LA FRONTERA The New Mestiza.  Apparently it was a groundbreaking work rooted in Gloria Anzaldua's experience as a Chicana, a lesbian, an activist and a writer.  On the back of the book it says that Borderlands "remaps our understanding of what a "border" is,  presenting it not as a simple divide between here and there, us and them,  but as a psychic, social, and cultural terrain that we inhabit,  and that inhabits all of us.

People With No Names - The Undocumented #82

This 15" x 30" oil on canvas is another view of the migrant father who came from Mexico 16 years ago to support his family.  He is dying...before he can see 'The Dream Act' (a bill that would enable his children to contribute to their new homeland as educated citizens) realized.  But there is hope,  because  U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez (Dem.- Chicago)  has gone on a 20-city tour to urge the White House to develop a fairer and more humane immigration policy.  "Barack Obama--who once bemoaned when  'communities are terrorized by ICE immigration raids, when nursing mothers are torn from their babies, when children come home from school to find their parents missing,  is on track to deport more illegal immigrants than any U.S president since Dwight Eisenhower and Operation Wetback in 1954.  (That crackdown resulted in the removal of nearly 1 million people.)  The Obama administration deported 800,000 people in its first two years."  Gutierrez wants Obama to spare two groups of people with an executive power known as "parole-in-place"---illegal immigrants who have U.S.-born children, and college students who might have qualified for legal status under the Dream Act.  Many Latinos believed in Obama's promise of "change" three years ago.  They need to see it.  For some, time is literally running out.     (the portion in quotes is from a column by Ruben Navarrette Jr. from the Washington Post Writers' Group, May 13, 2011)

People With No Names - The Undocumented #81

This is oil on board 8" x 12".  He is dying of pancreatic cancer.  He is undocumented.  He is running out of time and he will leave a wife and two children undocumented and vulnerable.  He is very, very skinny,  but is dressed up and slowly walks  into my house so that he can sit for me to paint him.  He had an air of quiet dignity. I ask if he is in pain and he re-assures me that he is not, because (and here he pulls his shirt collar down to show me) he has a fentanyl patch on his chest to slowly release strong pain killer into his body.  His daughter who has driven him to my house says that it is a "milagro" (miracle) that he is still with us. 

People With No Names - The Undocumented #80

This 24" x36" oil on canvas depicts an immigrant who is doing gardening work in my neighborhood.  I love his turquoise ladder and orange glove.  I will probably return again and again to the ladder metaphor/motif in my paintings...but maybe not always as a way UP (up in society, up economically).  Rather,  I am thinking of the ladder as a tool that helps a person "reach" something that is unreachable, and return to the ground safely.  We all need effective tools in our lives.

why i paint what i paint #20

Wow,  last night I saw an amazing film that I had NOT wanted to see,  (because I didn't even know it existed).   I went to see "Of Gods and Men" but the tiny art theater in Corvalis was only showing it every other night!  So we just picked an unknown movie,  and were blown away!  The movie is called "I Am", and explores 'what is wrong with the world,  and how we can fix it'.  It explores the idea that we are NOT competitive, survival of the fittest, creatures...but rather cooperative, inclusive beings.  It even points out that Darwin noted this characteristic of species;  but somehow his 'survival' idea gained historical traction and dominates.  And an 'idea' of how we ARE,  shapes how we BEHAVE.  If we believe that it is a competitive, dog-eat-dog world,  we will behave accordingly.  We will believe that poor immigrants are "taking our jobs,  abusing our social services, ruining our country".   The film defines 'mental illness' as: taking MORE than we need to live,  encouraging the strong to disregard the needs of the weak, (the young, the old, the infirm, the poor),  and applauding those who amass vast fortunes while exploiting the weak.  Of course the idea of fixing what is wrong with the world's systems is daunting, but as dear Desmond Tutu says in the film,  "God says,  I don't have anybody else (to do my work),  just you".   Tutu also reminds us that,  "There is only one way to eat an elephant...one bite at a time". 

why i paint what i paint #19

      President Barack Obama spoke at Facebook Headquarters in Palo Alto this past week.  He was making a swing through the west,  raising a ton of money for his upcoming campaign.  My husband told me that he spoke about immigration reform,  so naturally I looked up his remarks.  He said,
          "We have not gotten immigration reform done.  It's something I care deeply about.
            I can't solve this problem by myself.  We need immigrants who are educated,  who
            develop needed skills for the workplace,  who open businesses and help create jobs."
He also repeated his support of The Dream Act that would legalize undocumented students who
"think of themselves as Americans".
      I have no reason to think the President doesn't mean what he says,  but here's the thing (as Meredith Grey always says on Grey's Anatomy);  we need clear, concrete policy and leadership.  I was in an exercise class recently,  and the instructor was tentative and indecisive throughout the whole class.  She was cheerful and smiling as we all fumbled along trying to follow our "leader";  and she really MEANT to give us a good class. I had trouble paying attention because I kept thinking how much better the situation would be if we had a strong decisive teacher.  President Obama IS  a gifted orator and leader.  I believe he could rally the people of America to radical change and inclusion.  He needs to clearly explain what it could mean to us as Americans if we pass The Dream Act...and what it could mean if we don't.  ( for example, "Passing of The Dream Act could mean that we will have more educated, included young people in our midst...not passing it could mean that we will have a group of disenfranchised angry young people in our midst.")   He needs to meet with the many Latino men and women who are undocumented all over the United States who HAVE opened their own businesses and have many people relying on them for the jobs that their businesses have created.     He needs to tell these peoples stories,  and remind Americans that we are fundamentally a nation built by the rich diversity of immigrants.  He needs to give the people an individual face and human dignity.  He needs to move beyond "caring deeply" to taking action.  And finally, he needs to open a frank discussion about the fact that the meat and produce and construction industries of America are all heavily (in some cases almost exclusively) staffed with undocumented (read: illegal) workers...whom this country cannot do without.  It is an ongoing dirty secret...quite removed from the rarified air of the Palo Alto Facebook Headquarters, and a $38,000 a plate dinner at a dot.com CEO's home in San Francisco.  Interestingly,  the slogan for the 2012 campaign is "Are You In?".  In the case of a lot of undocumented people,  the answer is "Yes...now what?"

why i paint what i paint #18

This is an oil study 12 x 18" on unstretched canvas of the bent over cleaning woman.  I have been looking a lot at Degas' "Dancers",  and how they,  also,  are often bent over and twisting their bodies in ways that cause them pain, but give pleasure to others.  It is Holy Week for me.  I am thinking about the necessity of someone else being broken for me...so that I might have an easier life...or a life at all.

People With No Names - The Undocumented #79

This is another diptych oil on canvas 12" x 18 ".  It is  'Desde Abajo III'.   I am reading a book called "Life Is A Verb" by Patti Digh.  She says that, "Change occurs at the edges, without permission.  The same is true for individuals changing their lives as it is for societal change.  Martin Luther King Jr. didn't wait for a grant before marching from Selma.  Rosa Parks didn't pull together a National Bipartisan Task Force on Bus Seating.  Great change doesn't come with official endorsement.  It just never has"

Monk Librarian #7

I am re-reading  "Daybook-The Journal of An Artist" by Anne Truitt and I resonate with so many of her thoughts.  Here is one about children and meals in the midst of trying to carve out studio time: 
          "I could lower my standards but in so doing would sink with them,  taking my children
            with me.  It is not necessary for us to have candlelit dinners every night.  But the ceremony
            of meals has always been important to regard.  Where else can children learn so easily
            and pleasantly,  and at such range when guests are included,  what it is to be grown-up?
            The world of children is fascinating but very personal.  The presence of adults in the full
             cry of conversation,  with opinions, interests, engagements, and responsibilities discussed,
             crisscrossed by agreements and disagreements, laced with rhetoric, is so pungent with
            variety that children can learn without harm to their self-respect that they are, for all their
            interest to themselves, on their way to larger definitions."

People With No Names - The Undocumented #78

This is a diptych with each oil on canvas image being 12" x 16". Originally, on the left, I was just trying to block out the major shapes. On the right, (second painting) I got into more detail. Only when I finished, and really looked at them, did I realize that I had captured the difference between the immigrant's home country and the rich draw of America. Note that the refrigerator on the left is dark and empty, the shelves are bare. On the right, the refrigerator is lit and full of food. The red chair is "the way up" onto the counter. Everyone needs a "way up".

People With No Names - The Undocumented #77

Here is another 8" x 12" oil on masonite, Desde Abajo II. Notice that we cannot see the woman's face but she has been cleaning and loving the family for whom she works, for sixteen years. Every week, she thanks them at the end of her workday by saying, "Gracias por el trabajo.."(thank you for the work) and her employer has learned to say, "No, gracias a ti"(no thank you). She is thankful to be given work despite her undocumented status. Her intrinsic value as a human being is in no way linked to her undocumented or documented status.

People With No Names - The Undocumented #75

This is a detail of a large oil on unstretched canvas (2' x 3') with a small indistinct crucified Christ in the upper left hand corner (yes I have continued to look at Gauguin!). I just read that "to do theology means, in part, to face reality". Gioacchino Campese in his chapter titled 'Cuantos Mas? states,

"the planners of the current border policy knew very well that they were pushing immigrants toward a terrain in which they would find themselves in 'mortal danger', and they were aware that those natural obstacles were most probably not going to deter the migrants from crossing the border.   In other words, the deaths of thousands of immigrants at the U.S.-Mexico border is NOT an "unintended" consequence of U.S. border strategy, but part and parcel of an immigration policy that is often indifferent to the HUMANITY of immigrants, and does not really care if "SOME" of them die in the process of joining the cheap immigrant labor force that the U.S. economy needs.  After all they are criminals...not really human...illegal aliens. While employers of immigrants, and consumers of cheap goods continue to reap the benefits of this situation---without acknowledging it---the immigrants pay the real price of this policy with their very lives. Once again in the history of humankind it is the most vulnerable and defenseless people who must pay the price." pp. 281 and 282 "A Promised Land, A Perilous Journey"

why i paint what i paint #17

I am reading a book about the immigration experience called "A Promised Land, A Perilous Journey". It sets forth 'Theological Perspectives on Migration'. "So is it hard to migrate? It is clear that migrating is a difficult experience undertaken by strong people. In addition we see in the journey of the migrants a troubling contradiction: although they sustain much of the infrastructure of the U.S. economy, they are forced to live as foreigners and outsiders. And although the United States is a country of immigrants, those who come to this country today from foreign lands are still marginalized and excluded. This happens not only in the United States but is a problematic pattern we see in other parts of the world as well. And while globalization has opened borders to capital and commerce, people are being left out. This state of affairs cannot continue. The world must change... We need to see migrants as our neighbors...who we accompany, encourage, and animate. Encouraging the migrants along the way---to animate them, to put life back into them---is an important attitude that we must learn from Jesus. Time and again throughout the Gospels our Lord animates, gives life and strength to those who in their suffering approach him."---Oscar Andres Cardinal Rodriguez

People With No Names - The Undocumented #74

This is a 30" x 40" oil on canvas. The title is "Trouble Doing Homework". The little girl in the back on the left is having trouble doing her homework, because so many people live in her family's cramped quarters, and she has no private space. She is lucky though, because her third grade teacher, "Mr. Ramos, grew up, one of eight children 'following the lettuce' too. Home was a farm labor camp near Salinas and he has traveled far. The camps---a setting for John Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath"---were the subject of his undergraduate thesis at the University of California, Berkeley.   In his classroom, he has built an altar of sorts:  a collection of Berkeley memorabilia, crowned with the inspiring message "Class of 2024".   "But even for the most determined students here,  poverty and college do not mix", states the article in the Sunday, March 13, 2011 New York Times.  And yet...Oscar Ramos is a potent, everyday reminder to his classroom of migrant children (and their parents) that an education is possible,  that the ability to settle down and stay in one place is possible.

People With No Names - The Undocumented #73

This oil on canvas is 30"x 40". It shows two deportees peeling and chopping eggplant to help prepare the meal served to their fellow deportees. It only took an hour or so, but as I helped, I thought that my hands were freezing and that their peelers were dull. To my embarrassment, I actually went into their tiny kitchen to ask if there were any other, sharper peelers. Seriously??!!! I just read an article in the Sunday New York Times about seasonal farm workers (who these deportees are aspiring to be) who "toil in the vast fields of Salinas Valley, cutting spinach and broccoli and packing romaine lettuce from a wet conveyor belt; nearly 13 heads a minute, 768 heads an hour, 10 hours a day." This article goes on to say that originally many immigrants "came to the United States in the 1960s through the federal "bracero" program that imported Mexican agricultural workers". We needed "arms" to harvest our crops. We also needed espaldas (backs). But it is never a good idea to view other human beings as mere useful bodies...divorced from their hearts, minds, spirits, intellects and families. More on that tomorrow.

People With No Names - The Undocumented #72

This oil on canvas is 30"x 40" and titled "When You Eat This Bread, When You Drink This Cup". I am thinking a lot about the fact that immigrants would rather NOT 'eat the bread and drink the cup' of the immigrant experience. Like Christ in the garden, they wish that this cup could pass them by.

People With No Names - The Undocumented #71

This is an oil on masonite 16" x 24". It is a scene depicting two immigrants trying to cross the freezing desert in winter to enter the United States. Some Samaritans (a group of volunteers who comb the desert with water, food, blankets and medical supplies) found these brothers exhausted and freezing. They wrapped the one on the right in a high tech warming blanket. He is lying on the ground smiling because of the simple warmth he is feeling.
I heard a writer, who specializes in American history, speak yesterday. She talked about the Founding Fathers and their belief that The United States really was a shining 'City On A Hill'...a light...a beacon of goodness and hope to other places in the world. They actually believed that they were setting up a sort of heavenly place. So, I found myself thinking about the U.S. as a sort of 'lighthouse' and thinking, "of course people try to get here. If they are in trouble, if they are in stormy seas... they try to get help, they try to get to shore."

why i paint what i paint #16

I got to go to a Modern Dance recital this week, and for those of you who have read Julia Cameron's stuff, it was "an artist's date". I felt like I was being challenged and opened to new ways of seeing and thinking, and one piece looked like a Gauguin painting come to life. But the piece I just keep thinking about was called "An Identities". Two dancers came out on stage with their backs to us, and masks of blank-faced, red lipped mannequins on the BACK of their heads. Fortunately, they just paused there for a bit...so that we had time to figure out what we were looking at. Our eyes told us that something was wrong, but our brains kept trying to make it work. (I know in my brain I kept asking if the well-muscled back on the one girl could possibly be her chest cleavage???) Then they began to dance. Sometimes only one was facing us with her real face, sometimes both...they continually flipped front and back/real and unreal. In myself, I found an interesting phenomena taking place: I began to crave their real faces. Their real faces weren't perfect, flawless, etc. but they were REAL, TRUE...NOT FAKE. And it got me thinking about how much time and energy we spend trying to project a false self to others, a self that we assume is more desirable. (Just look at those ridiculous Christmas letters we get every year!, all that plastic surgery, all of our inflated job titles!) And this dance piece made me see once again, that there is NOTHING more desirable, more restful, more true than just being our authentic selves. So let's raise a glass to truth-telling and being...and to doing work that reeks of authenticity.

People With No Names - The Undocumented #70

This is an oil on canvas 18" x 24". The woman on the left has been working in the United States for 16 years. Her husband is dying rapidly of an incurable cancer. They have hospice care now. I know that his elderly mother wants to come up from Mexico to see him before he dies. I asked this woman when her mother-in-law was coming. She replied, "Maybe in three weeks". I raised my eyebrows to say, "Will he still be alive?" She said, "She has applied for a visitors travel visa...they don't know if it will be granted before he dies."

People With No Names - The Undocumented #69

This oil on canvas is 2' x 5'. This is not the whole painting...top and bottom are cut off. But the gist of this image is that there is literally tons of food to be harvested (and consumed) in this country. A certain undocumented demographic (very vulnerable) is doing this work... yet many of them are not able to feed their own families, while they toil amidst this plethora of produce. This image is meant to convey, that certain people are our arms, our legs, our backs.

People With No Names - The Undocumented #68

This is another version of the couple in the freezing cold deportee center in Nogales, Mexico. It is 12" x 24" oil on canvas. I was recently visiting my daughter's college campus for 'Parents Weekend', and as I was wandering around her beautiful campus I came upon an amazing sight...a REAL CHUNK OF THE BERLIN WALL! I exclaimed, and my daughter confirmed that, "Yep, it is the real thing...an amazing piece of history". Recently, in my immigration studies, I read about the jubilation that went through the Western world when the "symbol of separation between the material abundance of the West and the economic scarcity of the East" was torn down. The Berlin Wall "represented the dividing line between freedom and slavery, opportunity and oppression, prosperity and poverty...Ironically, as the great wall of separation was coming down in Europe, an even greater and more dangerous wall of separation was being fortified along the 1,952-mile border between the United States and Mexico...it is a wall of separation between the citizens of the United States and the poor of Latin America. As doors were opening to those who escaped the tyrannies of communism, doors were closing to those who were trying to escape the tyrannies of the unjust economic, political, and social structures of their own countries." p.13 Border of Death, Valley of Life

People With No Names - The Undocumented #67

Okay, you may think that you have seen this painting before...you have seen a smaller, different version. This oil on stretched canvas is 24" x 12". It is of a boy who is part of a multi-family co-op that organically grows raspberries and strawberries. It is a wonderful story (all the more so because of it's rarity) of immigrants from Mexico and Central America finding/creating safe, dignified work to support their families. They had help from kind community members securing a lease on the land, learning effective organic methodology, and selecting desirable crops to grow.

This immigrant story is highly unusual. As Father Daniel Groody (Notre Dame professor and scholar on world-wide migration) writes, the immigrant story most often follows the "four 'action verbs' of the Last Supper narrative---taking, blessing, breaking, giving. People 'take up'the decision to leave their homeland, 'bless God' for the gift of their lives and families (even in the midst of tremendous suffering), 'break themselves open' so that they can feed those that they love, and 'give themselves away' for the nourishment of others, even at the cost of their own lives." ---A PROMISED LAND, A PERILOUS JOURNEY p. 304-305.

People With No Names - The Undocumented #66

This 8" x 12" oil on canvas is the result of looking at a lot of Gauguin lately. Hence the blue hair on the woman and the green face on the man. Every time I listen to NPR, they say that the program is sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, "Dedicated to the idea that ALL PEOPLE (really, the announcer always emphasizes those two words) deserve to live healthy, productive lives. " Every time the announcer says it, he doesn't go on to specify any particular geography or people group...so I am left thinking that they just really mean ALL PEOPLE.

why i paint what i paint #15

This is a little oil sketch on cardboard of the Guatemalan wife and mother I met at the Nogales deportee center. She was standing alone...alien, unwanted. To endure this hardship, and search for a better life, she had made the difficult choice to leave her four children. Yesterday, ( in church in Tucson, AZ.), we were admonished to "Love our neighbors as ourselves". It always sounds so simple. I just have to answer the questions: (1) Who is my neighbor, and (2) How do I love myself? Who is my neighbor? Could it be anyone... whose need or suffering comes to my attention? Does geographic proximity play a part? Is my economic well-being tied into others...my neighbors? What makes me feel loved? Well, certainly 'inclusion' makes me feel loved. And 'being wanted' makes me feel loved. Certainly, rejection does not make me feel loved.

People With No Names - The Undocumented #65

This oil on unstretched canvas is 2' x 3'. Notice that the husband is looking directly at us, but his wife is looking away. She also has sunlight behind her...a sort of rectangular halo. As I talked with them, I learned that she had left her four children behind in Guatemala, with her parents, in order to accompany her husband in their quest to find work. She began to weep. Her husband is looking directly at us...eager to meet the future, find work, support his family. She is 'in her heart and mind' back with her children...where she wants to be...where all mothers want to be.

why i paint what i paint #14

Well, I am thinking about the word "immigration" in a larger sense after having lunch with a wonderful 80 something, delightful woman yesterday. She is someone, who in her lifetime, has moved out of the land of 'not knowing about homosexual people' to the land of 'having two gay sons, who both died of aids'. When people move from one country to another, there is often a considerable shift in thinking that follows the equally large shift of location. When people move from one set of assumptions, to another...a shift often (not always) occurs...sometimes it is like tectonic plates shifting under ones ground. This particular woman moved into the land of volunteering with the gay community; and told me that in the early days of the aids epidemic it was necessary to form friendships quickly. She said that in this new land, life was precarious and precious, and futures uncertain. Being forced to leave our old country and move to a new land can be very scary and even life-threatening...but it does remind us that futures are uncertain, and life is precious.

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 #63

This is an 8" x 12" oil on masonite. It is of three people at the deportee center in Nogales. The three different angles of their bodies suggest the way that none of them really knows which direction their lives will go next. When we have money and documents, we have some semblance of control over our lives...or think that we do. We have the hubris to think that we know what is coming next. We don't. We are all the same in this.

People With No Names - The Undocumented #62

This is an 8" x 16" oil on museum board. I have titled it "We Three Kings". Here's the deal: We GIVE THEM a donation of socks...then they walk through the Sonoran Desert (risking either hypothermia or hyperthermia depending on the time of year) and then they eventually GIVE US most of the meat and produce that we consume in this country.

People With No Names - The Undocumented #61

This is an 8" x 12" oil on masonite sketch of immigrants choosing from donated clothes. The white slash on the left is a pair of socks that the man has picked up. Socks are a constant necessity for immigrants , as they will be walking miles and miles.
I have a wonderful son-in-law whose job involves constantly working around rich, spoiled, over-paid athletes. (No offense if YOU are a rich, spoiled, over-paid athlete and you are following my blog.   Anyway, my wonderful son-in-law was coming out of one of the huge sports arenas (I like to think of them as modern day America's version of Europe's great cathedrals) where he works, and noticed a familiar figure...a homeless man who regularly begged outside the arena. My son-in-law stopped and asked him a great question, "What is it you really need?" And the guy said, "Socks". So my son-in-law drove home, and went into his sock drawer, emptied it into a bag and took it to the guy. I love that my tender-hearted son-in-law stopped, took the time (he works long hours and travels a lot to support his wife and children...I am sure he was tired), and dignified the man by noticing and addressing him. It was a little thing...and it was huge.

People With No Names - The Undocumented #60

This oil on masonite  12" x 12" depicts a deportee helping with the preparation of the second of two meals per day that the 'Comedor' provides. He and others are cutting up buckets and buckets of donated eggplant. He and others are skinning it and then chopping it up into cubes.   As we were helping,  I confess that I was thinking, "I don't really like eggplant".   Then I caught myself and remembered that we were gonna feed a lot of people with FOOD...and when you don't have anything, ANYTHING is good. I don't know where it came from, but it was a LOT of eggplant.

People With No Names - The Undocumented #59

This is another oil on canvas 8"x 16". These are the deportees waiting in the cold for more assistance. Notice the one on the right putting on new socks.   As I am listening to the news of all the travel delays in the U.S. right now due to winter storms,  I find myself thinking, "If you are traveling on foot those flight delays don't apply to you!"
In my family we like to use 'neologisms' (made up new words). In my readings about immigration I read a great one...the 'Sanctuary' workers of the 1980s said that they were trying to 'conscientize' North Americans to encourage them to work for immigration reform. I guess its a new version of 'conscience raising' from the '60s. Either way, I like it and I think it is happening to me.

People With No Names - The Undocumented #58

This is an 8"x16" oil on linen. It depicts the recently deported men who wait in a loose line along the fence leading up to the 'Comedor' where they can receive meals twice a day,  donated blankets and clothing. These men often make at least 4+ attempts to walk across the desert (at night), before they successfully avoid La Migra and return to work and family in the U.S. (or commence their life of hard furtive labor in the U.S).   Note the figure in front, second from the left, who is putting on socks. Socks are hugely important to men and women who walk for days across the desert, whose feet become blistered and infected. Socks are amazing, valuable protections. They can keep our feet warm, dry and cushioned from the constant abrasion of shoe against flesh.   Immigrants need real socks and 'legal socks' to protect them.

People With No Names - The Undocumented #57

This is a little study done on cardboard in oil.   Same subject as last one only I've put the people closer together...as they actually were when I saw them.  They are close to each other and close to us...both geographically, socially, historically, and psychologically.  As Franklin D. Roosevelt reminded a convention of the Daughters of the American Revolution,
   "Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended                            from immigrants and revolutionaries".   
Everywhere immigrants have enriched and strengthened the fabric of American life. As Walt
Whitman said,
   "These States are the amplest poem,
    Here is not merely a nation but
    a teeming Nation of nations."
These two quotes are lifted directly from "A NATION OF IMMIGRANTS" by John F. Kennedy.

People With No Names - The Undocumented #56

This painting is Oil on linen 8"x 16". The immigrants are painted with space between them to visually hint at their alone-ness and the winter jackets are for their protection against the cold and a metaphor for their need for protection against the cold reception awaiting them...even as they seek to come to the United States to provide us with produce and meat.  I stood in my local grocery store produce section last night and wondered how all that food got to me.

why i paint what i paint #13

I am reading a book titled "A Nation of Immigrants" by John F. Kennedy. It begins with the story of Alexis de Tocqueville (a young French aristocrat) coming to America in 1831 to attempt to understand the new experiment in democracy. On returning to France, he wrote his opinion about the American experiment in his great work, "Democracy in America". He identified a central factor in the American democratic faith: "It may be said that on leaving the mother country the emigrants had, in general, no notion of superiority one over another. The happy and powerful do not go into exile, and there are no surer guarantees of equality among men than poverty and misfortune"

People With No Names - The Undocumented #55

This 11'x14" oil on canvas depicts a father who I met at the Comedor in Nogales, Mexico. He was picked up walking across the desert at night (in below freezing temperatures), and deported. He is wrapped in a large moving van sort of blanket as he shows me a photo of his toddler daughter who lives in the U.S. with his wife. Both his wife and daughter are U.S. citizens and the small family has been living and working productively in the U.S for years. Because he was unsuccessful returning to his wife, she has been forced to move in with her mother in California. He does not know when he will see his family again.

People With No Names - The Undocumented #54

This oil on canvas 20"x 22"depicts a family that was recently re-united at the Comedor (a place where deportees are fed and given clothing and medical attention just a few hundred yards south of the U.S./Mexico border). The family had been living and working for years in Phoenix, AZ. when the parents (not U.S. citizens) went to a funeral in Mexico. When they tried to return to their children (U.S. citizens) in Phoenix, they were caught by border patrol and deported to Mexico. The "Samaritans", a group in Southern Arizona who are committed to protecting the welfare and even the lives of immigrants in the region, managed to re-unite the family in Nogales. I found it interesting to observe the various postures of the family members...the mother holding them all together, the father who needs to stay in the shadows to go undetected by authorities as he seeks to care for his family, the child in repose against her father's breast, the central child who looks like she is dancing or holding the world in her arms, and the son, looking outward...knowing that he will have to go out and help care for his family all too soon. I am re-reading Anne LaMott's TRAVELING MERCIES, and something that her preacher said seems to apply to this situation perfectly: "This is life's nature: that lives and hearts get broken---those of people we love, those of people we'll never meet. The world sometimes feels like the waiting room of the emergency ward and that we who are more or less OK for now need to take the tenderest possible care of the more wounded people in the waiting room, until the healer comes." Bravo Samaritans!

People With No Names - The Undocumented #53

This image is oil on board, 6"x 18". The title is "The Price of Strawberries". Quoting The Economist (Dec. 18, 2010), "There is no clearing house for jobs in the fields, so the migrants follow tips and rumours. Often, they end up in the right places at the wrong times. Felix Vega and his wife were dropped off in Oxnard (California), famous for its strawberries. But they arrived out of season, so they slept on the streets, then in a doghouse, then in somebody's car. For two months they did not bathe and barely ate. Finally, they found jobs picking strawberries and made their first money in America. And thus they joined the vast undocumented workforce that under-girds America's food supply...Rob Williams, the director of the Migrant Farm-worker Justice Project (which represents farm-workers in court) estimates that 90% of farm-workers are sin papeles (without papers), just as the Vegas are. Strawberries, the crop the Vegas couple started out with, are nicknamed 'la fruta del diablo' (the devil's fruit) because pickers have to bend over all day. "Hot weather is bad," says Felix Vega, but "cold is worse" because it makes the back pain unbearable. Even worse is sleet or rain, which turns the field into a lake of mud. The worst is picking when you have the flu."

People With No Names - The Undocumented #52

This is and oil on masonite 8"x12". This little girl was at the 'Comedor' in Nogales, Mexico. It was a cold January day but she was bundled up in a jacket, scarf, and hat and she was smiling. One sees few women and even fewer children in the deportee/refugee/immigrant population. Part of this is due to the dangers and hardships that all immigrants are subjected to, and part is due to the fact that many immigrants choose to leave more tender and vulnerable family members behind in order to 'go ahead and prepare a place for them'. It is a re-enactment every day of service and sacrifice, (recall Jesus going ahead of us to prepare a place for us, and then gathering us to himself.) Also, I am reading about the Chinese immigration to the U.S. in the 1930s and how the laws had provisions for men to come and enter the work force, but made it particularly difficult to bring in women and children. Women carried within their bodies the threat of increasing numbers of American born Chinese children. So, I can't help but look at this little girl and think, "Is she the next Vera Wang?" In the 30s, we certainly did not want Vera Wang's relatives in this country. Today, we are thrilled to call this very talented, hard-working, creative woman our fellow American!

People With No Names - The Undocumented #52

This oil on canvas is two side by side panels that measure 12" x 36" each.  These two men were picked up in Palo Verde, AZ and sent to a Federal Corrections Center. Their clothing, (including underwear) IDs and money was taken. Then, with no hearing, they were taken to the border at night (25 deg. F.) and left with no clothing (except the orange prison garb), no ID, and no money.  They showed up at the open-air shelter of the Comedor (which is a few hundred yard walk from the border, but only open a few hours per day) where they were fed and given money to call their families (in the U.S.) to tell them they were alright. They spoke English very well and had been living and working in Calif., Tenn., and Az. for 10 and 15 years, respectively.  I found it interesting as I painted the image, that the men are standing in front of a fence that is very suggestive of the jail from which they had recently been released.

People With No Names - The Undocumented #51

This oil on cardboard is 9"x18". The paintings shows three deportees who are cheerfully washing the dishes after one of the twice a day meals that are served at the "Comedor". The man in the front is scrubbing out a big pot. It reminded me that America is often referred to as a big 'melting pot'...and I just wondered how we decide that our pot is full...and we don't want anyone else in our pot.

People With No Names - The Undocumented #50

This painting is 8"x12" oil on canvas. I went to Nogales, to the Comedor (a metal roof and tarp sheltered kitchen/dining facility within walking distance of the Mexico U.S. border on the Mexico side) with my husband and two college kids. We reasoned that we were driving an hour south to get there, so thought it would be warmer than Tucson. In fact it is higher in altitude and a LOT colder. We only took sweaters. We spent the morning helping with one of the two daily meals that the Jesuit Kino Border Initiative provides. We talked with the recent deportees, dressing a very infected finger (that the man may lose), and interfaced with the wonderful Samaritan volunteers who come to Nogales regularly with donated clothing and medical supplies for people who have nothing to go 'back' to and no clear way forward. Notice that the people in the painting are in jackets, scarves, and gloves. Fortunately, the Samaritans had collected some warm winter clothing to distribute to them. We were cold, really cold. But after a few hours, we walked back across the border, got in our warm car, and drove home to our warm house.

why i paint what i paint #12

I just read a really good article in The Economist, a news magazine from London that gives me a larger perspective. The article starts with the story of a couple in Oaxaca who cannot take their sick two year old to the doctor because they cannot afford to pay him. They watch their son die. They make a decision to come north to the United States. After multiple attempts and humiliations at the hands of La Migra (America's Immigration and Border Officials); they succeed on their fourth attempt. It has been so grueling trying to eke out an existence working in fields, avoiding La Migra, enduring racial slurs, that the family hesitates when asked if they would do it all over again. "They think we're criminals, but we came here to do good and we're all children of God," says Felix Vega. The article concludes, "People like the Vegas will always keep coming no matter the fences that go up on the border and the helcopters that circle above. For they are like the Joads in John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. As Steinbeck wrote: How can you frighten a man whose hunger is not only in his own cramped stomach but in the wretched bellies of his children? You can't scare him--he has known a fear beyond every other."

People With No Names - The Undocumented #49

This is another small study (8"x12" oil on canvas) of the Guatemalan woman who received asylum in the United States. I am reading a wonderful book, "Cutting For Stone" and it has a wonderful passage about what it is like to be a brand new immigrant in America. "What human language captures the dislocation, the acute insufficiency of being in the presence of the superorganism, the sinking, shrinking feeling at this display of industrial steel and light and might?...I saw no animal, no humans except in cars...You there! Listen! Independence and resilience. This is what the new immigrant needs. Don't get fooled by all this activity...No, no. One functions alone in America."