Most of the work in this show was produced in early 2017, after the 2016 election and during the early weeks of the Trump Administration. This has been a period of heavy media digestion for me – a time when I have become, for the first time in my life, immersed in politics, delivered through news organizations and social media. Concurrently with making many of the paintings in this show, I have closely followed cabinet appointments, state department intrigue, and the details of legislative processes. I’ve gotten to know my State Senator, and I have participated in protests of Trump’s immigration policies at Hartford’s Bradley Airport and of his treatment of women in Washington D.C. I’ve also been a part of an effort to resettle a refugee family, and gone through the angst of visa denial and the subsequent joy of welcoming a Syrian grandmother, mother, and daughter to my neighborhood after Judge James Robart’s brave ruling. In addition, I’ve had a number of experiences I couldn’t have imagined a year ago: I’ve received a recruitment email from a white supremacist group hoping to build a presence on the college campus where I work. I’ve joined other concerned parents and staff at my son’s daycare at a Jewish Community Center to discuss an action plan in case of bomb threats. And I’ve listened to my Hispanic stepfather in New Mexico –a former director of a Los Alamos government laboratory who was under consideration for a cabinet appointment during the Reagan administration - express his anger about an impending “identity verification” visit from a Social Security agent. Perhaps surprisingly, in the midst of all of this political activity- very new to me – I’ve only become more convinced about the value of painting practice. I’m grateful to radio host Caroline Casey for her reformulation of a Japanese Proverb: “artworks are the visible evidence of the artist’s invisible growth.” Abstract painting is about developing consciousness – that of the artist and of the culture that she is a part of. These paintings express (in my own painterly language) a jolt of awakening. They are signs: of caution, of warning, that danger might be ahead. They are meant to invoke the urgency of waking up and participating.