What 2020 brought...

​

"STRUGGLE" – An Exhibit of Our Times
  New Rochelle, NY  –  City Hall Rotunda   –   Feb. 15, 2021

                          ARTIST STATEMENT

The year 2020 was the most difficult in my life, yet

it purports the most potential for change in the racial landscape of this country.  After reading newspaper headlines every day, and watching daily (and nightly) news reports to keep up with crisis after crisis, I am

more hopeful than ever that we can start to mend, reestablishing a more perfected understanding of

the progress that needs to be made to fix the ills

we have suffered as a people for centuries. 

We are on the verge of a resurgence of goodness, love and hope, now that we have weathered one challenge after another, day after day over this past, most incredible year.  

 

"Hindsight is 2020" now that we've made it to 2021. This piece, "Humanity Arises and Takes to the Street," took a year to complete and served as catharsis for me. Collecting newspaper clippings to collage with

the woodcut figure, which represents the thousands of peaceful protesters from all walks of life that took to the streets during the summer months of 2020

to denounce the heinous treatment of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and countless other Black people

at the hand of police officers sworn to protect and defend us as American citizens, gave me purpose.

 

Creating this work of art, this labor of love, allowed me to express my emotional response to the tragedy that 2020 was on so many levels, and then to make room to see the good it has left in its wake. 

I always want to look for the good.

 

​

​

               Writing received telepathically by Jan Smith Castronuovo

​

​

 

​

​

​

​