In His Own Words mini art journal

09/10/2020 by UKMA 17 Comments

We all cope with things in our own way. This is how I am coping with the craziness in the USA right now. One follower has already waved goodbye and I waved back. I feel like I have neither shouted about (OK, well, till NOW) nor hidden my political leanings, so you can either embrace the differences we might have or I am happy to wave goodbye to you too. I feel strongly about the direction I want the country to take. I feel strongly about who I think is going to get us there. I might not live in the USA but nearly all the people I love, deeply, reside there. I pay my taxes (there AND here) and I feel I am entitled to my opinion. I am sorry if that offends people. But for the first time (and maybe the last) I exorcised my angst, and my anger, thru art – which is, I think most would agree, a time-honoured tradition.

As I mentioned I am calling this In His Own Words, because ALL the quotes are directly from TV tape of Trump or from his Twitter feed.

The Cover:

All the pages started as A4 heavy cardstock, Gelli-printed using inks. Most of the stencils are ones I cut. More on that later.

This is a quote from The Apprentice.  Something The Donald said to one of the contestants.  It has one of my favourite bits – the pig from a Cake album cover and the words wallowing towards the apocalypse.

This is a timeline of all the quotes denying the seriousness of the virus and/or saying how little masks would help. Most from TV press conferences, a couple from Twitter, all well-documented.  Stats from Worldometer.

The now infamous refusal to deny white supremacists during the debate.  The little bit of music is something I recall from my favourite documentary Harlan Country USA (I stress, documentary, not the lame movie of the same name!) and is entitled Which Side Are You On? That harks back to the Good people on both sides comment after Charlottesville. It is actually the first lines of a couple of different stanzas, but the words seem appropriate. It was also nice to get to use all my wacky and crying people stamps. 

A snapshot in time. On the day we heard the President had the virus, and would be getting world-class health care, courtesy of the taxpayers, I grabbed the details from Worldometer again.  I think the ultimate irony (IS that the right word?) is that the event that probably infected him was the mask-less Rose Garden event to announce his Supreme Court nominee. She  has shown, thru her writings and decisions in the past, that she is the PERFECT pick for him.  With a few critical cases due to be heard soon (Obamacare, Roe V. Wade, and election-related lawsuits) you might say she is the Anti-RBG in nearly every way and is expected to vote accordingly. 

You saw this the other day.  I won’t re-hash it. 

Honestly, his words say it all.  Madness. What a slap in the face to the 100000s who have died, who didn’t have his access to world class healthcare.  For some, no health care at all.  If he gets his way, that number will increase by multiple 1000s more.  Where is that Trump-care plan?  When will we see it?  How will it protect people? 

Back to the first page I shared.  Back to when I had no idea where this project would end up. Back to when I wasn’t sure I would be sharing anything else other that the VOTE page.  I’m with her – and this time I mean Michelle Obama – when she says Vote. Vote like your life depends on it.

And finally, the back cover.  Two things – a Banksy stencil, and a quote that is often attributed to George Orwell.  If you want to read a really interesting overview of the quote attribution issues, click the link to the Quote Investigator, it’s pretty informative.  I don’t have the same questions about the quotes I’ve used here.  I saw most of them play out on TV – except the Apprentice one, to be honest. I never watched that show.

Do I have ANY hope this might change anyone’s mind? Not bloody likely.  But did working thru this process help my state of mind?  It did.  It really, really did.

I’ll save the stencil details for another post.  This got waaaaay long.