2020 Looking Back

Description

2020 was certainly quite the year. Even though it is not quite over, I am hoping there are no more momentous events to take place.

 To record the craziness of the year, in art, I made a garden totem. The totem has 6 large cylindrical pieces, each representing a part of the last year. 

The bottom piece represents the the black lives matter movement. Glazed black and white swirled together, yet separate,  with the names of some of the names we came to know with the movement. The names are slightly raised by using the water resist method.  Around the middle of the piece is the saying which became the cry of the summer, “I can’t breathe.” Later in the summer, civil rights leader John Lewis died, and his saying, “make good trouble” is on the back side.

The next piece up represents some of the climate crises we had this year. An incredible number of hurricanes, to the point names nearly ran out, that forced the expansion of hurricane season are represented by the swirls around the equator of the piece. The top leaves, glazed brown, represent the drought that impacted much of the country. The bottom shows flooded houses sitting in water up to the mid-point of the front door.

The next piece shows the forests that burned in California. 

The back side has a single silhouetted tree. It was so scary to see the pictures on tv of the hills in California burning and the accompanying anguish of the people who watched helplessly as their houses burned. 

The next piece represents what we all came to know as the corona virus. It really was what controlled all our lives. Small, invisible, a hoax even to some, even as, at this date, over 274,000 Americans have died from it, and yet, our president did nothing. Doctors and nurses have posted stories about patients struggling to breathe and not believing they have the “hoax” virus, that it must be something else, since covid does not exist. Next week, the rollout for the vaccine begins,

but it will take months for every person to get the vaccine. Then, the ongoing issue will be convincing the anti-vaxers to take it… 

With all the craziness of this year, beloved supreme court justice, Ruth Ginsburg died. She fought so hard for so long to hang on, despite numerous battles with cancer,  to keep the Supreme Court from going conservative. Trump was able to appoint 3 supreme court justices during his term, totally changing the composition of the court.  The piece on the totem has a couple of RBG’s famous quotes, as well as some of her more famous court cases where her opinions, both dissenting and concurring, made her an icon for many. It also has her famous collar around the top complete with beads. The beads are threaded with a plastic coated beadings wire, and are made of a etched clear glass, giving it a frosty sea glass look.

The top piece represents the presidential election. More people voted in the election than ever before. Veteran politician Joe Biden and Black female senator Kamala Harris won both the popular and elector college vote. Trump, at this date, has yet to concede, and whether he would leave the white house was questionable, but Biden and Harris have stayed on point working on the transition. The piece represents the final four states that put Biden/Harris over the top in the electoral vote. The piece originally had large blue waves, but I had to cut them down to blue ripples.  4 sides represent one congressional district Maine, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Despite legal challenges to the vote, and cries of fraud by trump’s clown car lawyers, each case has been systematically thrown out of court. 

There are still a few days left in 2020, while a peace is settling over the country and anxiety levels have lessened, Trump still occupies the White House, but his relevance is dissipating each day. January 21, 2021, can not come soon enough.

The totem is about 4.5 feet high, and each cylindrical piece is about 8 inches tall.  It big piece is separated by smaller neck pieces – each of those being about 4 inches high. All the pieces are mounted on a 5/8 screw rod, supported by washers and nuts between pieces.

The piece can be left out most of the year with out much fear. In the winter though

, I would take it in, or cover it. There are places where water could collect, and if it froze, would cause the ceramic pieces to break. If the totem is completely dry, a garbage bag, or other watertight covering, could be placed over the piece,  and tightly secured for winter storage.

I do not have a base for this totem,

and it is currently stored in a box. To plant the totem in the garden, I would suggest taking a large flower pot, securing the rod in the pot, and filling the pot with cement. The pot could then be planted in the garden. I did this with the two other prototype totems I made, although I filled the pot with gravel and not cement, and even with a less stable footing, they have survived some very strong winds, including the remnants of a hurricane.

I think this could be shipped, but the person who buys this will have to pay the additional shipping charges. If you are local, I would consider delivering the totem and planting it for you, for an additional charge.