Power of the Press

Power of the Press
31" x 28.5"
2014
I am humbled by my failures.  I am disappointed. I am sometimes sad, and sometimes angry.  All of these are okay.  It is simply part of the path.  Sometimes work needs to be made just because it's next.  There are no guarantees that the work will be good, or relevant, or accepted.  And just as I have utter joy in my successes, I know that they only represent part of the story.  I try to accept all parts of my story, but honestly, the successes are much easier to talk about--publicly.

Today's piece is a quilt I made several years ago.  It has been rejected too many times to count from every venue I entered it into.  And now, it has aged out.  It is too old to enter into most venues.  And, though it is a failure to me for a number of reasons, perhaps it is ahead of it's time? Perhaps it is even more relevant today?

I wanted to make a piece about what news is and what it aspires to be.  As I get older I feel more cynical.  This piece begs the question, how much of a story is actual news, and how much is written just to sell newspapers?  How much is written and published just to sensationalize an event, regardless if it represents a whole story, or a true story?  What is truth?

Yes, I am that old.  I am the age where my 'go to' for news is still newspapers.  But how much more heinous is the act when it is published and consumed so instantaneously?  It hurts to think about it.

This piece is made out of newspapers, newsprint, cotton, and silk.  There is a tremendous amount of black thread sketching. The newspaper titles were printed, paper laminated, and then Mistyfused into place. I made the binding red to allude to the old riddle, "What is black and white and red all over?" There are many answer to that riddle, one of which is a newspaper. The emotional expressions and the red work well together. 

Today this piece feels more relevant because of amplified hate speech, lies, rhetoric that are being published as "truths".  Some people are calling it fake news.  Some very powerful people are calling anything they disagree with fake news.  The era of reason and truth seems to be disappearing into the background.  Sensational or not, it would not be normal to NOT feel shocked, appalled, and angry today. I think fake news is the ultimate oxymoron.  If it is fake, then it isn't news.