Ward Schumaker is an artist who creates striking paintings, makes beautiful books and speaks truth to power. His show TRUMP PAPERS (Hoisted on his own petard) recently opened at the Jack Fischer Gallery, 1275 Minnesota Street in San Francisco. It consists of works recently done that immortalize the immortal words of our president — words we try to ignore but should never forget. And a few words about him, including the ones spoken by former CIA Director John Brennan that I’m leading off with (left) because they express the beliefs of the majority of Americans, those of us who did not vote for Mr. Trump.
The paintings speak for themselves. So I’m pasting a few of them in here:
Words matter. Policies also matter. It’s very hard for some of us who are grandparents to see the planet our grandchildren will inherit being destroyed while the denier-in-chief looks only at profit margins.
And his adoring base. It’s also hard to watch what’s happening to other people’s grandchildren at our borders. Or the disappearance of decency and civility that we wish for our grandchildren’s world.
Artist & Writer
But back to the words. In TRUMP PAPERS, Ward Schumaker emblazons them into our psyches, just in case we might forget. His earlier show of paintings memorializing Mr. Trump’s sayings, Hate Is What We Need, led to an eponymous book now in its second printing (also available at Jack Fischer Gallery, Minnesota St or 311 Potrero Ave.) I gave copies to several friends, precipitating some interesting conversations. Do I want this book on my coffee table? Could we give it another title? Do we need to immortalize these stupidities? Questions worth pondering. But if it’s true that those who can’t remember the past are condemned to repeat it, as Santayana reminded us, Schumaker’s paintings will definitely help guard against repetition in years to come.
There was, also, a note of very good news at the opening of the TRUMP PAPERS show. A soft-spoken young girl, about 10, was quietly creating her own art work on a ledge at the back of the gallery. A note lying among her drawings informed the curious that they were for sale for $1 (four or five digits less than most of the works available at the Jack Fischer Galleries) and that all proceeds were for immigrant children. Her name was Mila. I paid double the asking price for my selection, which is shown below. Maybe her words will eventually drown out all these others. Go see the show if you can.
The official Ethiopian language is Amharic, but more than 80 languages are spoken. None of them are easy for English-speakers – although this writer is proud to have mastered the Amharic word for “good morning” (which I cannot spell.) This may be as far as I go. Ethiopia is also the only country in Africa with its own indigenous alphabet, but there are 33 main alphabets with each containing a row of seven different pronunciations . . . The Ethiopians I know speak English with beautiful accents.
I wrote about all this once long ago, on the late lamented news aggregate site True/Slant, and the vitriol that landed upon my page in response made me very glad that my T/S readers didn’t know where I lived. I mean, it was if the NRA had put out a worldwide hit on me. I’m now counting on the belief that most of my current readers are kinder and gentler – since you can sure find out where I live if you don’t already know. And I’m satisfied that most of my angry T/S readers long ago quit following this blog. We’ll see.
When I was a child of about 12 someone broke into our home – well, nobody locked their doors in Ashland, VA in 1945 so he probably just opened the door and walked in – and made his way to the second-floor bedroom of my oldest sister Jane, who let out a mighty scream. The intruder left multiple hand prints on the newly painted walls as he swiftly descended the stairs (and left by another door.) But by the time the Richmond police arrived they pronounced the fingerprints too dim to be of use, so our nocturnal visitor was never identified. My family (4 girls + parents) that night morphed from 6 people in five beds to 6 people in two beds – Jane in between my mother and father; the other three of us in one double bed. (It took us several weeks to expand back into our individual beds.) The next day, our father bought a gun. It went to reside on a shelf in the closet of our parents’ bedroom. We all knew where it was; once or twice my sister Mimi and I stood on a lower shelf and looked at it. But instead of making us feel safer and protected, the thing created more fear. Despite all his stories about working on somebody’s ranch in Texas as a boy, my sisters and I (and our mother, I regret to report) feared our father’s probable ineptitude with a gun more than we feared another intruder. We had belatedly also begun to lock the doors. All five of us – mother + 4 daughters – also feared the fearsome instrument on the closet shelf more than we feared anyone who might be confronted by it. Overruled by us all, my father soon (I think it took less than a couple of weeks) took the gun back to wherever it came from.
You need to swagger manfully around with a pistol on your hip? Fine. Swagger somewhere else – like, on a shooting range. Just stay out of my Starbucks. All I want is to drink my latte in gun-free peace.
I am (as you may know) Fran Johns, a fairly simple name that has worked for me since 1992. I live in Apt 704, 2400 Miller Street in San Francisco, CA 20020. I began to get mail addressed to Stephanie Yamamoto, who lives in Apt. 704, Two Cascade Hills Blvd, San Francisco 20020. OK, the ZIP codes are the same too – but still. Johns v Yamamoto? Miller St v Two Cascade Hills Blvd? You can’t mix these up unintentionally.
We met for tea. The very charming Ms. Yamamoto is not my new best friend, but close. The packet from Hawaii which the U.S. Postal Service would have sent floating around ZIP code 20020 forever contained essentials needed for a trip to meet her mother (the Hawaiian addressee) overseas, where she does remarkable nonprofit good work – but that’s another story.
