People With No Names - The Undocumented #40

This man came from Mexico and is a Native American. He owns a Mexican restaurant and introduced me to " an immigrant who really had a hard time ". He came from Bhutan by way of refugee life in Nepal. If I had not been introduced, and talked to him, I would have assumed that he was from countries south of the U.S. We can never assume.

People With No Names - The Undocumented #39

"Lettuce Pickers" oil on canvas 15x21". I was flying from the N.W to the S.W. last Monday and noticed an article in the airline magazine about Yuma, Arizona being the 'lettuce capitol of the world'. The article showed pictures of people eating gourmet luches right IN the fields...lunches of fresh greens and veggies. Food ingredients, that they had selected during pre-lunch tours, magically appeared on their plates. The article was trying to drum up more foodie tourism and the photos looked very Napa-ish. The promoters claim that rigorous care is taken to keep the fields "clean and uncontaminated"..."if a dog wanders into a particular field, they don't harvest it". Which brings me to my painting. In a small, far-away photo, showing lettuce pickers, the caption claims that it takes 40,000 pickers a day to keep up with the lettuce harvest!!! ERK! I quickly read and reread the article...hoping for info on these 40,000 workers. There is no info. They are clearly beside the point. I want to know where they come from. I want to know if Cesar Chavez's workers rights are protecting them. I want to know if their living conditions are hygenic...because they want only the "cleanest" conditions in their fields.

People With No Names - The Undocumented #38

If I had to title this I would say that it is "Papered People". I was having dinner at a friends recently when I realized that 3 of the 8 people at the dinner table were immigrants to this country. Fortunately, all 3 have "Papers" or citizenship...(although I doubt any of them carry them in the car with them). The woman in front was brought to the U.S. in elementary school from So. America when her mother married an American man.(She speaks perfect English,Portuguese and Spanish) The man in the middle was a recruited athlete from Eastern Europe who got a professional degree and remained in this country. He speaks Turkish and charming English. (He works "7/24" sometimes, and they are going to buy a "feeding station" (high chair) for their baby.) The young woman on the right is the most interesting. As a ten year old, in an orphanage in Mexico, she was brought to the attention of an incredibly persevering and kind American woman. This woman (in whose home I was eating dinner) promised this little girl that she would adopt her and get her out of the bare bones orphanage. (Apparently I was VERY wrong when I pictured it like the orphanage in the "Madeline" books!) It took 4 years to get her legally out of there. Her future mother visited her repeatedly, and then left her sobbing behind the orphanage fence as she continued to pursue the legal avenue for passage to the United States. The 10 yr. old was 14 when she got a mother. It has been difficult, but she did just graduate from high school and spoke at her graduation in her charming, not perfect, but quite good English, (VERY GOOD, considering she started total immersion at age 14!) My friend did it the 'legal' way...a lot of harm was done during those four years. I asked if she ever thought of just "sneaking her in"...she said (in the words of Sarah Palin), "You betcha!"

People With No Names - The Undocumented #37

I keep thinking that these agricultural workers look like the jockeys who ride racehorses. They are small in stature, very strong, and brave. They are riding a big powerful racehorse known as "the Global Economy". As is true for jockeys, this is dangerous work.

why i paint what i paint #9

I was thinking about the Cruise Ship that lost power down off the Mexican coast and what a "hardship" it was for the passengers "trapped" on the ship as it was slowly towed up the coast. You know, they had to eat cold food, the air-conditioning was out, oh and they had to entertain themselves by having sing alongs! I am sure it was yukky...by American standards; and definitely by expectations vs. reality standards! (Expectation: fabulous, all amenities included 'Disneyland on the Ocean'. Reality: part of the time the cruise was as expected, then without warning the whole ship was plunged into quasi Third world conditions.) I am sure that it was unpleasant, but being paying customers the passengers WERE cared for and DID have a reasonable expectation/hope of being rescued fairly quickly from their predicament. Compare this to undocumented immigrants being ferried across the desert by a decidedly disinterested party (the coyote) or the trapped minors in Chile. I mean we are actually talking about people who WILL continuously be accompanied and attended to on their journey and WILL come out alive and well, versus people who MAY come out alive, MAY continue to be accompanied (or not), and MAY be starved, raped, beaten and die. So I will not be portraying any 'cruise ship people'. They have advocates. I DID find it instructive to go back and read about 'steerage' passengers at the beginning of the 20th Century. Alfred Stieglitz made that great photograph of the people in steerage, and while it is a beautiful photo, it hardly captures the horrible conditions of immigrants in steerage.

Works In Progress #8

This painting refuses to dry out enough for me to keep going so I will post as is. This Guatemalan woman is selling fabric in Antigua. She is practicing the most common form of "day care" in Guatemala...tie your baby on and go to work.

People With No Names - The Undocumented #36

This Mexican immigrant is working in a greenhouse in the Pacific Northwest. It wasn't until I really looked at the image that I realized that the struts from the greenhouse were casting the cross-shaped shadow across his chest. I think the figure looks as if he is "bound" or "shackled". I think he is, and I think I am too. We are both tied to a system that thrives on cheap labor producing lots of cheap goods...a system that literally disregards individual human well-being. As long as I consume with disregard for where and how my goods come to me, I am as culpable as anyone for the value and quality of this man's life.

why i paint what i paint #8

I saw a powerful movie two nights ago called "Under The Same Moon". My husband and I couldn't get it to show us English subtitles so we just watched it in Spanish and got the gist of it. It wasn't hard to do. It was a gut wrenching portrayal of the life of a ten year old boy living with, and taking care of his sick grandmother. In a flashback, at the beginning of the movie we see his mother enduring a harrowing journey into the U.S. (four years earlier) in order to earn money to send her son to school and feed him. We see him joking around with a cousin who is a "Chiclets" selling, ragged little kid who has no adult supporting him. Meanwhile, his mother is getting up in the dark in L.A. to take 3 buses to get to house cleaning jobs. They speak every Sunday via public telephones without fail. They can't physically see or touch each other but they are under the same moon every night.

People With No Names - The Undocumented #35

This is a Department Store in Nogales, (I think we were still on the U.S. side) and I thought it was a cheery pink store with a fairy tale name. It was only afterward, as I read more and more about NAFTA and immigration policies that I realized how very apropos it is to think in terms of Mexico as the mistreated step-sister. Cinderella is the one who does all the cleaning, and fetching, and is kept out of sight. She is not considered a legitimate part of the family and has no one to advocate for her. She certainly CANNOT go to the ball.

People With No Names - The Undocumented #34

This is my nod to Dorthea Lange, the photographer who made her famous 1936 image of the "Migrant Mother". It has been 74 years since Lange put a face to the plight of migrant agricultural workers in California. Lange's image depicts the mother with her children huddled around her. In my image the Salvadorean woman is utterly alone, having left her 5 children with her parents, in order to go find work to support them all. When I did the math, I was kind of shocked to realize that in 74 years, the plight of agricultural workers has not changed much. New groups of people have simply been inserted into the machinations of the food harvesting industry.

Works in Progress #7

Eugene, Oregon: This morning, with the help of my wonderful sister and a brave owner, I hung 9 "immigration themed" paintings in a local restaurant that serves Mexican, Central American, and Caribbean cuisine. It is called Red Agave and is located at 454 Willamette St., west side, just before you come to the train station. Please go and check it out if you want to eat and drink great food, or just to look at the art.

People With No Names - The Undocumented #34

This oil on canvas (18"x24") depicts agricultural workers in a local greenhouse. Yesterday on NPR I heard a story discussing the impact of immigration policy on (specifically) apple picking in the U.S. It seems that even a weak economy and scads of unemployed Americans will not entice the American worker to  'go down on the farm'.  A Washington state apple farmer says that he prefers immigrant labor because they will work 7 days a week/ 14 hour days if he asks them to, with no bitching, happy to do it".  He does not want American labor because in his words, "they just won't do it".  An American woman, unemployed, said she won't work there because there is a social barrier,  then she paused and added, "it's hard work". (Incidently, this woman is married to a Latino and speaks fluent Spanish!) The grower pays $15/bin (a bin is 900 lbs.) and a fast worker can make $120/day. The crew boss introduced a worker named Martina from Oaxaca who picks 8 bins/day and proudly boasted that she is a "mujer" (woman)!   The Latino crew boss says that he, " understands that the grower cannot pay more than he makes...if Americans want low prices at the supermarket, the growers can't pay higher wages in the orchard. American growers are under pressure due to cheaper apples coming in from Chile and China." (Personally, with China's toxic track record,  I would not want to eat an apple shipped from China.) With wages $15-$20/bin, work orders for 150 American workers have gone unanswered.

People With No Names - The Undocumented #32

This is another oil sketch on canvas (15"x 21") of plant nursery workers in the Northwest. One of my children is visiting this weekend from college, and tells of a recent discussion in her English class. Her professor is positing the idea that everything we do, choose, wear AND say, is rhetoric. Beyond words, all of our choices and actions are seeking to communicate our life hopes and desires in a powerful way. I often think that immigrants, especially those who don't speak English, cannot speak for themselves. But in the context of 'life rhetoric' their choices speak loudly and clearly. The act of leaving a life, family, and culture behind, traveling to a foreign place (on foot!), taking almost nothing with them, argues forcefully for the economic necessity and desperation driving our Mexican and Central American neighbors.

why i paint what i paint #7

Today I was painting, and heard a story on the radio about "space tourism". Apparently, Richard Branson has gotten one step closer to his goal of operating his new commercial space travel business. He is doing tests at his new space station and hopes to soon begin offering flights to 8 people at a time, with fares STARTING at $200,000. He has 200 people signed up already. The flight will include 5 minutes of weightlessness at the edge of space, and then return to earth. Where is this very expensive airport located? It is in New Mexico, right next to the border with Mexico! Wow, many people say that we cannot afford to welcome our poor neighbors to the south. There is always trouble when there is great economic disparity between neighbors; and even more so when the rich neighbor flaunts his wealth in the face of the poor neighbor. Our Central American neighbors are sacrificing greatly to provide bread for their children...and we are flying into space...for fun.

People With No Names - The Undocumented #31

This is an oil sketch on canvas (15"x 21") of 3 workers at a wholesale nursery in the Northwest. I asked permission to talk to the workers. The owner at first stated that all immigrant workers are documented...but then admitted that the agriculture business could not exist without the pool of immigrant labor (documented or otherwise). As is often the case, there was understandable hesitancy and resistance to answering my questions. But as I bumbled along in my rudimentary Spanish, and promised not to use names, the men told me why they came to the U.S. and where they came from. This group came from the states of Oaxaca and Yucatan. All came for the same reason: economic necessity. Even though these men are short in stature and the particular plants are about knee high, the day's work involves bending over all day long. These men are thankful for the work. There is dignity in work and the ability to care for one's family.

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 #29

This woman from El Salvador is receiving a simple nourishing meal at a refugee shelter in Nogales. A young woman from my church observed that, "serving others in the context of hospitality is a powerful act, and a beautiful 'welcoming of all' at the table of our society".

why i paint what i paint #6

Yesterday I saw a staggeringly beautiful film. I was spellbound by the lighting, the images and the themes. The film is "Never Let Me Go" and was adapted from the book by Kazuo Ishiguro. I cannot recommend the book and the film highly enough. It explores themes of technology, ethics, human worth and dignity, and the place of art as an indicator of our intrinsic humanity. Oh, and it re-visits the concept of 'duty and service' that was so beautifully rendered in Ishiguro's "The Remains of the Day". Interestingly, Ishiguro is an immigrant, raised in England by his Japanese parents. He finds the concept of duty very similar in Japan and England and except for his Japanese name, the reader would never question his English lineage.

People With No Names - The Undocumented #28

This asphaltum under-painting is a study in light, medium and dark values. I am trying to get to the heart of the image, just as I am trying to understand the immigration debate. I am trying to understand why a wealthy, diverse nation of immigrants no longer wants to welcome tired, oppressed, huddled masses. We are a 'stone soup' nation. Many of us came to this country with so few material resources, such that we can name them in only one short sentence. The man in this image, with his back to us, showed me his deportation document. He has gotten the maximum time, ( 20 years), before he can re-apply to join his wife and child (both U.S. citizens). He had been working for many years picking melons and other crops in the U.S. He told me that a policeman had asked to see his papers and the deportation had ensued. I have since learned that the INS is backlogged by at least 18 yrs. in processing applications for family unification...so this man is potentially elgible to legally re-join his family in 38 years.

People With No Names - The Undocumented #27

What could be more quotidian than doing dishes...a ritual cleansing of vessels.  I worked on this for several days before I really noticed that everyone is doing dishes in big plastic bowls,  not plumbed sinks.   Plumbing is not necessary for cleansing; it is the water that is vital.