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Radical Moves

10/5/2024 12:44:05 PM | By Gail M Gallagher | Comment on this

Welcome
Oil on Canvas, 36 x 30 inches

I just completed a large painting titled, Welcome. It features the Statue of Liberty, a quilt over her shoulder, welcoming in the "tired, the poor." As Mom would say, "A quilt is a hug that you can keep."

This painting began as something completely different. In 2019 it was an abstraction of the Manhattan Bridge and tulips. In May of 2020 (Covid!) I made a radical move by painting Lady Liberty's face in the center.

My teacher, Louise Kittel frequently offered two bits of advice. I use this advice every day that I paint:

"Always look for the darkest darks and the lightest lights."
"Sometimes you just have to make a radical move."

Welcome came into being after a series of radical moves.

The painting languished behind a raft of other canvases until this summer. A 36 x 30 inch canvas, it was just too large for me to give up on. I could take it to the dump or I could continue making radical moves and discover the results. The first thing that I needed to do was to take sand paper to the entire canvas. The oil sticks used in its beginning stages had left thick marks on the canvas. I liked the texture, but didn't want it to be too distracting. Once that I was done, I began to apply oil paint again in earnest.

I tried painting in more of Lady Liberty, but her torch went out of the picture frame. Hmmm. Not a good look. How to solve this problem. Mom had sent me a picture of my brother-in-law with his birthday quilt over a shoulder, this inspired my next radical move.

The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Emma Lazarus
November 2, 1883

The words of The New Colossus kept echoing through my head. How had our public discourse devolved into such hateful language? It is all so heartrending and heart breaking.

An illustration of immigrants on the steerage deck of an ocean steamer passing the Statue of Liberty from Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, July 2, 1887.

I eventually added purple mountain majesties and a shining sea to the background. The silhouettes of people trek through the space between Lady Liberty's arm and tablet on their way to the shelter of the quilt. Words from the poem, The New Colossus and synonyms for immigrant are inscribed on the mountainsides. I haven't varnished this yet, so there could be more radical moves in the future, but I think the painting is complete. For now.