Category Archives: Reflections

Response to the Women’s March

I’m Proud to present my own art work! It’s called Response to the Women’s March.

My story behind art: I heard so many news stories before the march about how the organizers had diversified the planning team to get more support for the march. Then the march happened. I went to the Bellingham part. In my experience, it was huge, powerful and positive. I noticed that there where different groups of marchers: supporters for Planned Parenthood, people for science, gay rights, support for Muslims, people of color and so on. I noticed that a lot of the groups where from well-established movements.

Afterword I saw pictures from The New York Times and The Bellingham Herald. I could see the enormity and see the appeal to those around the world. I listened to NPR and heard how trans women felt left out, and heard Carly Fiorina talk about how we (marchers/democrats) talk about inclusion and diversity, but leave people out.  I started thinking. Who did the Women’s March leave out? At the next meeting of VOX (voices for Planned Parenthood) where we talked about the Women’s March, and one thing we talked about who was left out. Then we attempted to write letters to the editor, where I originally did a sketch of my piece.

So, what’s in the sketch? On the left I have a lot of the movements that I thought where represented in the Women’s March, especially groups I saw in the part in Bellingham. A quick description of the left half of the picture: I write “We all marched separately.” Then I depict several groups: gay rights, women’s rights/Planned Parenthood supporters, Black Lives Matter, indigenous water protectors, and trans rights.

In the middle I have a depiction of the Women’s or as some called it Womxn’s March. There is a thick crowd of people cutting diagonally across the paper. Under them there is the caption “Then we all joined forces.” This is a little sarcastic.

On the right, there are groups that I felt or heard where left out of the March. I have conservative feminists, representing Carly Fiorina and feminists like her, dehomed activist (I just learned this term. It is a better word for homeless, but I didn’t know that when making the image), who I included because dehomed people are very often completely ignored, and trans women, whom I know felt left out of the Women’s March. Diagonally to them, I wrote “But we left some out.”

Detail image:

I concluded my response with the words in the upper right hand corner: “Let us all stand together as we reflect on what happened and is happening so we can work for social change and a better world, From Ruth Ewald, 19, WWU student, social justice fighter”. This is a call to start participating in critical social justice. I know that there are groups still left out of my image, but the point of my image isn’t to show every modern protest movement. It is to show what I saw and heard from and about the march. So, that’s the what and why of my art work.

Thanks to everyone who gave me input, ideas and inspiration fro this post.  Image created by me. Paper, pencil, pen, colored pencil, scanned, snipped with Snipping Tool, edited for visibility on Word. Continue reading Response to the Women’s March →

Airings…voices of our youth

Reflections, Social Justice

I have had the privilege to watch ballet, and swing live on stage, see ballroom dancing in movies, and participate in folk, modern, Zumba, and the dance party dance. Airings was something else. Music or recordings of middle and high schooler voices played as a sound track while dancers used their bodies to show the experiences of the youth. In the background, projected images showed landscapes, definitions of words and in between dances images of teens texting each other appeared. We could see them type and retype their words, and it was humerus.

As described to me in an email, the dances dealt with: “gender, sexuality, bullying, forgiveness, friendship, love, and hope”. I had said and heard some of what the youth had said when I was in high school, but some of it was from a different perspective than mine. I found the dance about suicide very powerful.  I’m not suicidal nor, to my knowledge, where any of my friends.  I knew one of the people who committed suicide at my high school, but I didn’t know she was suicidal till afterward. While most of the performance takes on serious issues the dance ends with a beautiful piece which was a visualization of hope brought to life. I believe the performance incapacitates the lives of middle and high schoolers, whom it’s for, and shows those of us who aren’t what it is like to be a youth, it helps us listen. I would highly recommend this performance.