My oil painting, 30 x 30, “Political Messaging in America the Beautiful,” completed in summer 2022, was my response to the constant emails seeking campaign donations over the last several years. I contrasted the manipulative emails with the ideals of American the Beautiful.
The image, along with my op ed that explained in detail why I objected to them, and describing some of my process of creating it, was published in October 2022 in the Raleigh News and Observer, the Charlotte Observer and the Durham Herald.
Basically the painting shows the purple mountains majesty, fruited plains and amber waves of grain in the background as symbols of American Idealism as reflected in the song America the Beautiful. On the flag’s stripes are collected snippets of manipulative language from campaign emails showing how far from our ideals we have strayed due to the machinery of political modern day fundraising requests of small donors since Citizens United.
The N and O original version entitled my piece: “Why I turned incessant appeals of political donations into art.” The Charlotte Observer entitled it: “I was bombarded with campaign donation appeals. I turned it into art.”
Here is a link to it in the Raleigh News & Observer (for subscribers):