Angelo Lopez's blog

Hi folks. Here are some of the paintings and drawings for my show. The first is a pen and ink drawing called "First Boat Ride". The second is a pen and ink and watercolor drawing called "Greed". The third is an acrylic painting that I just finished called "Some People Are Missing". Hope you enjoy.

I hope none of you mind my shameless plug of my art show. I'm having an art show this September and invite any of you in the area to my show.

If any of you are in the San Francisco Bay Area, my show will be in Gallery Saratoga in Saratoga, California, from September 2 to the end of the month. I'll have a reception on Saturday, September 6, from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. I'd be happy if you see my show. You could look up my art at http://www.gallerysaratoga.com/artists/Lopez/index.html.

This year I've been doing more ink drawings and cartoons than paintings. My work has been influenced by some classic illustrators: John Tenniel and his work in Lewis Caroll's "Through The Looking Glass"; Garth William's work in "Stuart Little" and "Charlotte's Web"; and Maurice Sendak's work in "Where the Wild Things Are." I've also been influenced by George Herriman (cartoonist of the 1930s comic "Krazy Kat"), Charles Addams (a cartoonist for the New Yorker), and Robert Crumb (an underground cartoonist). A big recent influence has been Fritz Eichenberg, a Quaker woodcut artist for the Catholic Worker, and Kathe Kollwitz, a graphic artist during the 1920s and 1930s. These various artists have influenced me to try to create work with more social commentary and more depth.

I’ve always been interested in the civil rights movement and the general movement for social change. As I’ve read books on the people who’ve participated in the fight for equal rights, one name kept popping up who inspired many of these people to become active. Bayard Rustin is not as well known as Martin Luther King Jr. or Malcolm X, yet he played an important part in the middle of the twentieth century in organizing protests for civil rights and for anti war causes, and he helped bring Gandhi’s philosophy of nonviolence into the mainstream of American progressive thought. His work on behalf of important progressive causes was informed by his Quaker faith, and his activism helped improve American society by tearing down segregation in the South and bringing to the forefront issues of economic justice and world peace.

When I used to think of George Washington, I usually thought of the guy whose picture was on the one dollar bill. Most everyone else I know thinks of Washington in the same way, which is sort of sad. In the past few years, I’ve read more about George Washington and have grown to admire him. During his lifetime, he was revered by his countrymen for his courage in leading the Continental Army to victory against the most powerful military in the world, and he drew even greater praise for his willingness to give up power and respect the spirit of republican government of the early United States. He was a good man and a wise leader, and nothing shows Washington’s character more than his evolving views towards slavery. Though he started out having the same views on race as his fellow Southern plantation owners, Washington’s views evolved to the point where he was a strong voice against slavery and wished that some means for the country to rid itself of the institution.

On this 4th of July weekend, I'd like to actually post a speech that Frederick Douglass gave about Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1876. I think it's in keeping with our election year and in keeping with one of the roles of a true patriot: to help our nation live up to its highest ideals. An excerpt first from the book "Douglass and Lincoln : how a revolutionary black leader and a reluctant liberator struggled to end slavery and save the Union" by Paul Kendrick and Stephen Kendrick:

"In the most inciscive estimation of Lincoln that Douglass was ever to make, the speaker reminded his audience that at the time of the beginning of the war, abolitionists (including Douglass) had seen him as 'tardy, cold, dull, and indifferent,' but when Douglass measured him against the rest of the coutnry at the time, Lincoln was 'swift, zealous, radical, and determined.' Douglass now fully understood what Lincoln had gone through, balancing public opinion and justice.

In the end, Douglass's people had come to love this president, and for a simple reason: 'We came to the conclusion that the hour and the man of our redemption has somehow met in the person of Abraham Lincoln.'

Growing up, my views of the American Revolution were influenced by the musical 1776 and the School House Rock specials on Saturday morning. I grew to deeply respect our Founding Fathers and to see in them a heroism that is lacking in today’s leaders. As a grown up I’ve started reading a lot of history books that remind me that though these Founding Fathers were great leaders, they were also human, and that the Revolution was as much the story of the ordinary merchants, farmers, slaves, native Americans, and women as it was of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Our historians remind us that the American Revolution was a complicated event, with mixed results many of the people who participated in the fight. I’ve especially learned from 3 of my favorite historians, Howard Zinn, Gordon Woods, and Joseph Ellis, to see the founding of our nation in new ways.

These past few months following the primaries have been a lot of fun for me, as I’ve found the Democrats running for President this year to be the most interesting in quite a long time. The candidates ran the gamut from middle of the road candidates like Hillary Clinton to traditional liberals like Joe Biden and Bill Richardson to more progressive candidates like Dennis Kucinich, and it was healthy for us to hear the spectrum of ideas within the Democratic Party. Early on I supported Joe Biden because of his experience and his plan of partitioning Iraq. When he dropped out, I briefly supported Bill Richardson but he soon dropped out. When the California primary came along, I settled on supporting Hillary, as I was impressed with her toughness. Now that the primaries are over and Obama is now the Democratic candidate, I wholeheartedly support Barack. I think this was an especially strong Democratic field of candidates, and they all would be better as President than George W. Bush and the Republican field this year. Though I didn’t vote for Barack during the primaries, I’ve always thought of him as being an intelligent and charismatic leader who brings unique gifts to the Presidency.

Today I read in the paper about the first gay marriages to take place today after the California Supreme Court ruling making it legal in the state. The San Francisco Chronicle has had a series of articles on the history of the gay marriage debate, on the work of attorneys willing to fight for the right and on priests willing to perform the marriage services, and on the change in attitudes of the institution of marriage among the gay and lesbian community. I think the San Francisco Chronicle has done a great job of educating the public on the history of the gay marriage debate, showing both sides of the issue and giving a good reason as to why it is so important for the gay and lesbian community.

A few weeks ago I received the 75th anniversary issue of the Catholic Worker. The Catholic Worker is a progressive Catholic newspaper that was started by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin to apply Catholic Social Teaching to the issues of poverty in American society. I’ve always been a fan of Dorothy Day from biographies that I’ve read and from hearing of people who really admire her. I bought a used copy of her book “By Little and By Little: The Selected Writings of Dorothy Day” 5 or 6 years ago, but only started reading through the whole book last year. Inspired by the book, I subscribed to the Catholic Worker in December through Amazon and received my first issue in January. Since then, I’ve looked forward to looking in my mail and finding a new issue to read.

A few years ago I first saw the documentary, "Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision". It was made in 1995 by Freida Lee Mock, and it documents the career of Mara Lin, the architect who designed the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington D.C., the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama, the Yale Women’s Table and many other wonderful buildings. Her most famous buildings have political and well as aesthetic motivations, that elicit strong emotions in people based on how they encapsulate their age. Maya unexpectedly won the design competition for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial while a Yale student, and it threw her into a huge storm of controversy. The controversy over Maya Lin’s design showed the raw emotional wounds that still had not healed when it erupted in 1980, and Maya Lin’s finished memorial showed the power of art to affect people and touch upon important issues of society.