Diane Green.
The result is a July 11th event at which Green will unveil “The Wall” at Once Around, meeting attendees to discuss the painting during the Mill Valley Arts Commisson’s First Tuesday Artwalk (6-7:30pm). The painting will be unveiled in Once Around’s window gallery on July 4th.
In addition, the local group of “pink pussy hat” knitters that regularly meets at Once Around is creating a huge version of the hat to cover the electric box outside the store. Attendees are invited to wear their pink hats contribute to the group “knit-in” on July 11.
“My canvases were pretty-to-look-at Mediterranean seascapes and still lives ” Green says. “I grew into doing larger abstract pieces that were more intuitive and color driven. Then the presidential election happened. When you paint, what’s in your head comes out on the canvas … hence The Wall. I grew up in Texas. Trump’s campaign promise to build a wall feels personal to me and decidedly crazy. The Wall is message art clear and simple; it evokes the absurdity and violence of trying to physically divide our country and Mexico. What a dark place we reach when fear and hatred reign. In time, The Wall may live in some attic—akin to the Confederate statues removed from their pedestals in New Orleans. Those sculptures will be replaced by American flags. The inverted flag in my painting stands for a government in distress, memorials to a time in our country’s history that must never be forgotten. My hope is that my painting will become an image that causes a lot of head-shaking and reminiscing over thememory of NOW. If our country can right itself, and we—as a nation—can collectively return to our better natures…let us rejoice as patriots (maybe I’ll go back to aesthetically pleasing artwork). But for now, I want this canvas to shout loudly for a not-so-happy Independence Day!”