27
Apr
2004
The Americans Who Tell the Truth project started with one portrait. Then it became a planned series of 50. Now, even its creator isn't sure where it will stop.
The genesis of the project was the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Robert Shetterly, a painter who lives in Maine, explained in his artist statement that the attacks made him angry at U.S. foreign policy, and about the ways political leaders wrapped up narrow self-interest in a flag of patriotism and national security. "A democracy whose leaders and media do not try to tell the people the truth is a democracy in name only," he wrote. "If the consent of voters is gained through fear and lies, America is neither good nor great. Nor is it America."
But Shetterly found comfort in dissenters from throughout this country's history. "I began painting this series ... as a way to channel my anger," he wrote in his statement. "In the process my respect and love for these people and their courage helped to transform that anger into hope and pride and allowed me to draw strength from this community of truth-tellers, finding in them the courage, honesty, tolerance, generosity, wisdom, and compassion that have made our country strong."
In an interview with the River Cities' Reader last week, Shetterly put that sentiment even more succinctly: "I didn't want to be cynical any more," he said.
The project celebrates American dissenters, people who fought against the status quo and through that process created positive change in the world. These portraits can provide inspiration, the artist hopes, for Americans dissatisfied with the way things are.
Twelve of Shetterly's paintings are on display through May 2 in the Thomas Tredway library at Augustana College, and the artist will be presenting a slide lecture on Thursday, April 29, at 10:30 a.m. in Centennial Hall.
The connection between the terrorist attacks and the paintings might not be immediately clear. Shetterly explained that he believes that leaders in the United States are fighting terrorists the wrong way. "The way to combat terrorism isn't necessarily going to be improving intelligence," Shetterly said. "Increasing our dedication to justice in the world" - such as improving health care and education - "eliminates support for terrorism among the people of the world."
You might disagree with Shetterly, but that's not really the issue. He wants to make clear that dissenting voices are critical to American democracy. He wants people to re-evaluate the post-September 11 conventional wisdom that national unity is crucial to the war on terrorism. "We were told [that] to dissent was unpatriotic, even treasonous," Shetterly said. Furthermore, he said, if a country's leaders aren't telling the truth, voters cannot give their informed consent; that's where "truth" comes into the equation.
The project has been Shetterly's obsession for nearly three years, but it started small.
Although his art had previously been grounded in ambiguity, Shetterly decided to paint a portrait of poet Walt Whitman to express some of his anger. On the portrait is an epigram: "This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown."
"I thought that would be the only one," Shetterly said of the Whitman picture. "I've never been a portrait painter." He finished the 50th painting last week. "Now I realize I can't stop," he said.
The series has a wide range, from President Abraham Lincoln and women's suffragist Susan B. Anthony to African-American author Zora Neale Hurston and historian Howard Zinn. Many in the series are world-famous, yet a few might not even be well-known in their communities. Perry Mann ("No lobbyist can bribe nature. In the end all politicians and everyone else must accept the mandates of nature and the consequences of violating them. In that is my optimism."), for example, is a teacher in West Virginia.
Each portrait includes a quotation from the subject, who typically stares directly at the viewer. Shetterly puts each of these people on a backdrop of nearly solid color.
Despite these similarities, each piece has a different feel. The resolved face of Susan B. Anthony ("Women, we might as well be dogs baying the moon as petitioners without the right to vote!") dominates her portrait, while the visage of African-American author James Baldwin ("People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction, and anyone who insists on remaining in a state of innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster.") is relegated to the bottom half of his picture; he seems to haunt his red background with heavy-lidded eyes.
"I started from the inside, from the nose and the eyes," Shetterly explained about the compositions. The position and size of the face are "all just haphazard in that sense. It has nothing to do with relevance or importance."
The artwork is obviously secondary with Shetterly. The painter has clear, political aims, and the aesthetics of the work are meant primarily as a magnet, drawing attention to the subjects and what they have to say.
Most of the progress the United States has made, Shetterly argues, has come from dissent. It has helped close the gap between "what the Declaration of Independence said we were and what the laws have actually given us," he said.
This isn't Shetterly lecturing people on the country's history, though; it has been educational for him, as he's delved into the stories of people "largely known to me as names if at all." When he committed to doing 50 portraits, "I had 20 names in mind," he said. It was "absolutely necessary for me to learn my own [country's] history."
Many of the portraits became research projects, as he "haunts" libraries for pictures and biographical information. "I spend as much time reading or researching for a quote as I do actually painting them," he said.
A cursory glance at the list of people Shetterly has chosen to paint reveals his politics; most of his subjects sit on the political left. Yet the artist claims that he's not endorsing Democrats in general; members of both parties have lied to the American people regularly. The people he has chosen might have "views [that] are from the left, but not from a political party," he said. "It's not a partisan statement."
Included in the group are at least two relatively contemporary Republicans: Dwight D. Eisenhower ("Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed ... .") and Margaret Chase Smith, a GOP member of the U.S. Senate from Maine who was among the first to denounce McCarthyism.
It is subjects such as Eisenhower (who was chosen for articulating the human cost of war and for the style of his presidency) and Emma Goldman ("The greatest bulwark of capitalism is militarism.") that inspire the most comments, with people complaining about contradictions. Goldman was an anarchist who advocated political violence, for example.
"I'm not going to defend everything any of these people did," Shetterly said. "Everyone's flawed." What he's trying to capture - and promote - is "the intent of what they were trying to do or what they were trying to say at a particular time."
And like any list, controversy is a good thing, prompting discussion and debate over the choices. "I wanted to create discussion," he said. "It's a way to start talking."
For more information on Americans Who Tell the Truth, visit (http://www.americanswhotellthetruth.org). A book for children featuring 50 of Shetterly's portraits will be published in summer 2005.
But Shetterly found comfort in dissenters from throughout this country's history. "I began painting this series ... as a way to channel my anger," he wrote in his statement. "In the process my respect and love for these people and their courage helped to transform that anger into hope and pride and allowed me to draw strength from this community of truth-tellers, finding in them the courage, honesty, tolerance, generosity, wisdom, and compassion that have made our country strong."
In an interview with the River Cities' Reader last week, Shetterly put that sentiment even more succinctly: "I didn't want to be cynical any more," he said.
The project celebrates American dissenters, people who fought against the status quo and through that process created positive change in the world. These portraits can provide inspiration, the artist hopes, for Americans dissatisfied with the way things are.
Twelve of Shetterly's paintings are on display through May 2 in the Thomas Tredway library at Augustana College, and the artist will be presenting a slide lecture on Thursday, April 29, at 10:30 a.m. in Centennial Hall.
The connection between the terrorist attacks and the paintings might not be immediately clear. Shetterly explained that he believes that leaders in the United States are fighting terrorists the wrong way. "The way to combat terrorism isn't necessarily going to be improving intelligence," Shetterly said. "Increasing our dedication to justice in the world" - such as improving health care and education - "eliminates support for terrorism among the people of the world."
You might disagree with Shetterly, but that's not really the issue. He wants to make clear that dissenting voices are critical to American democracy. He wants people to re-evaluate the post-September 11 conventional wisdom that national unity is crucial to the war on terrorism. "We were told [that] to dissent was unpatriotic, even treasonous," Shetterly said. Furthermore, he said, if a country's leaders aren't telling the truth, voters cannot give their informed consent; that's where "truth" comes into the equation.
The project has been Shetterly's obsession for nearly three years, but it started small.
Although his art had previously been grounded in ambiguity, Shetterly decided to paint a portrait of poet Walt Whitman to express some of his anger. On the portrait is an epigram: "This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown."
"I thought that would be the only one," Shetterly said of the Whitman picture. "I've never been a portrait painter." He finished the 50th painting last week. "Now I realize I can't stop," he said.
The series has a wide range, from President Abraham Lincoln and women's suffragist Susan B. Anthony to African-American author Zora Neale Hurston and historian Howard Zinn. Many in the series are world-famous, yet a few might not even be well-known in their communities. Perry Mann ("No lobbyist can bribe nature. In the end all politicians and everyone else must accept the mandates of nature and the consequences of violating them. In that is my optimism."), for example, is a teacher in West Virginia.
Each portrait includes a quotation from the subject, who typically stares directly at the viewer. Shetterly puts each of these people on a backdrop of nearly solid color.
Despite these similarities, each piece has a different feel. The resolved face of Susan B. Anthony ("Women, we might as well be dogs baying the moon as petitioners without the right to vote!") dominates her portrait, while the visage of African-American author James Baldwin ("People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction, and anyone who insists on remaining in a state of innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster.") is relegated to the bottom half of his picture; he seems to haunt his red background with heavy-lidded eyes.
"I started from the inside, from the nose and the eyes," Shetterly explained about the compositions. The position and size of the face are "all just haphazard in that sense. It has nothing to do with relevance or importance."
The artwork is obviously secondary with Shetterly. The painter has clear, political aims, and the aesthetics of the work are meant primarily as a magnet, drawing attention to the subjects and what they have to say.
Most of the progress the United States has made, Shetterly argues, has come from dissent. It has helped close the gap between "what the Declaration of Independence said we were and what the laws have actually given us," he said.
This isn't Shetterly lecturing people on the country's history, though; it has been educational for him, as he's delved into the stories of people "largely known to me as names if at all." When he committed to doing 50 portraits, "I had 20 names in mind," he said. It was "absolutely necessary for me to learn my own [country's] history."
Many of the portraits became research projects, as he "haunts" libraries for pictures and biographical information. "I spend as much time reading or researching for a quote as I do actually painting them," he said.
A cursory glance at the list of people Shetterly has chosen to paint reveals his politics; most of his subjects sit on the political left. Yet the artist claims that he's not endorsing Democrats in general; members of both parties have lied to the American people regularly. The people he has chosen might have "views [that] are from the left, but not from a political party," he said. "It's not a partisan statement."
Included in the group are at least two relatively contemporary Republicans: Dwight D. Eisenhower ("Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed ... .") and Margaret Chase Smith, a GOP member of the U.S. Senate from Maine who was among the first to denounce McCarthyism.
It is subjects such as Eisenhower (who was chosen for articulating the human cost of war and for the style of his presidency) and Emma Goldman ("The greatest bulwark of capitalism is militarism.") that inspire the most comments, with people complaining about contradictions. Goldman was an anarchist who advocated political violence, for example.
"I'm not going to defend everything any of these people did," Shetterly said. "Everyone's flawed." What he's trying to capture - and promote - is "the intent of what they were trying to do or what they were trying to say at a particular time."
And like any list, controversy is a good thing, prompting discussion and debate over the choices. "I wanted to create discussion," he said. "It's a way to start talking."
For more information on Americans Who Tell the Truth, visit (http://www.americanswhotellthetruth.org). A book for children featuring 50 of Shetterly's portraits will be published in summer 2005.
