The election's over, time for new work

OK, here we are less than a week after the election, and I'm thinking about new work. The work I've been doing for the last year was called Rolling Boil, and it had to do with being REALLY PISSED (angry, boiling angry) about the direction in which my country was being railroaded. Everything in this body of work was on wheels, rolling along toward an indeterminate future. The piece that most powerfully spoke to this time in our history (and this time in my artmaking) was Rendition Vehicle. You can see a video about it here

YouTube

Here are some photos of it. The eagle sits on top of the vehicle, piloting it, and the vehicle rolls very quietly, with only the sound of the leper's bell tinkling softly. Back in the middle ages when leprosy was a scary reality in the world, lepers were obliged to carry and ring a bell, calling out, "Unclean, unclean," to warn others. The vehicle rolls so quietly and unobtrusively, you'd almost not know it was happening. In fact, lots of Americans DIDN'T know it was happening, that our country was taking people to other countries to torture them in an effort to get information that was supposed to "keep America safe."

The bottom image shows the rendition victim inside the vehicle. It is shocking to open up the vehicle and see the victim inside -- it kind of takes people's breath away. It IS shocking.

This Rolling Boil work was on display during the election season, from September 23 - November 16, 2008 at the Lazy Pear Gallery in Montpelier, Vermont (a great gallery) during which I gave a talk on Art and Politics on Saturday, October 25.