WE DIDN'T COME HERE TO BE PRETTY.

From a photo taken by Sven Goerlich in 2012
Size: 48" ×54"
Diptych from 2018

From a photo taken by Russell Lee for FSA October 1941)

From a photo taken in 1969 by Jack Robinson
Size: 24" ×54"
Painted in 2018

The way Nina Simone’s life and music come through her was so uncensored by her circumstances. I always loved her voice. Reading about her life broke my heart, but knowing of her activism and how nobody could force her to be "pretty" rings louder and louder, especially now. Her recent "prettification" didn't change her message, to my relief.

Unknown photographer, Jamaica, 1910
24" ×78" Diptych
Painted in 2018

I have been dying to paint Olive since her great granddaughter dropped of a photo taken in 1910 in Jamaica. I was told that this young woman, wearing a heavy manly coat and a giant garish bow, didn't want to come to the States and I sought to convey her strikingly unsmiling resentment.

From a photo taken by Dorothea Lange for FSA February 1936
Size: 48" ×78"
Quadriptych from 2018

I can't believe this image is from February 1936. The original title “Drought Refugees in California" doesn't do it justice. The girl in her coat and pants, especially with her nonchalant stance and smoldering regard, is years ahead of her time. She was James Dean when James Dean was a child of five.

From a photo by Arthur Rothstein for FSA, February 1936
40" diameter
Painted in 2018

This family of a migratory fruit worker from Tennessee camped in a field near a citrus packer at Winter Haven, Florida. I love the complex angle that is even more intricate with the round format of the canvas. I love random objects that get sudden importance, like the presence of these scissors.

From a photo taken by Carl Mydans for FSA February 1936)

Size: 48" ×60"
Painted in 2018

This is the interior of an Ozark’s cabin that housed six people in Missouri, May 1936. This mother has 'got this' and you see it in her intense expression that contrasts the Tide advertising in the cabin’s wallpaper. Her daughter is in happy oblivion, each are in their own world, but we clearly know who is in charge.

From a photo taken by Russell Lee for FSA, April 1941
Size: 24" ×54"
Painted in 2018

As I shuffled through the Farm Security Administration's Record of American farmers trekking through the Great Depression, I was struck by the importance of their struggle against nature, banks, and politics and how that relates to the constant fight of women to achieve equality and justice.