Black Death

Somehow, I keep getting drawn back to disks. I think I'm almost finished with the series I'm calling The Black Death, made with oil-painted disks in loose grids. There are three strung up (ugh, what an image...) and four more waiting to be laced into grids. Each of the sections has at least one disk with the name of an unarmed victim of police shooting, written in black but rubbed almost to the point of erasure with white paint. There are also images of people in the community (these are not portraits of the dead), things happening in the community and its environment, including the sky, growing things, and other animals that live there. Here is a look at the three that are finished:

Eric Garner:

Michael Brown:

I blew up (again, an unfortunate phrase with multiple associations...) some of the paintings on disks (which are about 2.5 inches wide) to 9" wide, and made placards for a vigil that is happening in Barre every Wednesday from 12 noon - 1 PM. We used them for the first time last Wednesday, May 27. While I was standing there a guy came roaring by on a motorcycle and yelled "Yah, they're good for chopping cotton." Even in Vermont.