It took me a long time to figure out what to write, and to write it. Writing is hard. I package all my prints with stories on the back. “It’s not a test,” I tell people…

This is an artwork about two strong women who faced similar tests, 27 years apart. Their stories challenge the stature of powerful men and highlight the costs of privilege. The social forces moving into and radiating out from the moments depicted in this work are so complex, far reaching, and unfinished, that I scarcely know where to start writing about them here. To write the unravelling of the racial component alone could fill an encyclopedia. To simply repeat the narrative that is available to anyone with an internet connection would be tedious, and I don’t have the heart for it. So I’ve decided to crop in, to focus on these people and mostly on the message.

When I read about Anita Hill and Christine Blasey Ford I was astonished and discouraged by the terrible price they paid for telling the truth. In a nutshell, they became exiles. They receive huge outpourings of support, but still they are targeted by haters in the most outrageous ways. To anyone who is interested in the fundamentals of tragedy—this is it, right here. Here is the individual called to doomed moral action against huge, crushing, and unfair forces—forces that used to be called the gods. Irony rains down from above. Behold the hero who succeeds within failure, by staying strong. Where is the success? As Rebecca Solnit argues compellingly, we cannot know the far-reaching results of moral actions. Sometimes the goal we think we are acting toward—for example, stopping a Supreme Court nominee—is smaller and less important than an actual felicitous outcome. And as in Biblical tragedies, it may take more than one generation to reach the promised land. We can’t know for sure while we are acting. That is why we need to keep acting according to just principles and support each other in our struggles, in the ways we can and know how to do. It takes time.

Our heroes do not accomplish the work, they embody the message. A message is one of the more powerful things that can motivate groups of people with shared values—or at least significantly overlapping values—to work together. Not many of us can withstand the pressures that Hill and Blasey gracefully withstood, but many of us can work together so that fewer of us will have to. After Anita Hill faced her test, more women than ever before ran for political office, and many of them won. I’m pretty sure that’s not what she had in mind when she was testifying. But I count that as a victory.

The protests in front of the Supreme Court building during the Blasey hearings were not really about the nominee. I went there thinking about the nominee and how he should be held to a higher standard. But I soon realized that we were not there for him. We were there for each other—for the other women there—and especially for those there who were moved to say “me too” (both women and men)—those who had experienced sexual assault and the shame and pain of telling their stories. When I was there I saw a woman alone—she was not saying “me too” when prompted—but she did hang her head weeping when she heard the speaker say, “you don’t have to say it if you’re not ready.” I was alone too. I touched her shoulder to comfort her, but I’m not sure I should have done that. This also is a scene from classic tragedies: the chorus of weeping women.

DESIGN NOTES
The aqua color comes from the suit that Anita Hill wore during her testimony (this source photo [sixth frame in slide show] credit Greg Gibson/AP). In the photo of Dr Blasey that this print is based on (credit WiMcNamee/AP), she is centered under an elaborate wall clock with radiating lines outside its face. I was struck by the image’s similarity to Byzantine mosaics I’ve seen representing saints: the hand raised in benediction, the halo behind the head. I think of the clock circle in this print as a representation of the female power of persistent strength that both Professor Hill and Dr Blasey share. And indeed, Hill spoke in support of Blasey before the hearing, in a sense bestowing her benediction on the new witness. In this print she does this through time, as her 1991 self. It was a design problem to put the two figures in relation, and the clock circle was the key to this. Clocks represent time (obviously) and the key message used to fight sexual harassment in particular institutions right now is “time’s up.” Time’s up … it’s time … it’s about time.

Here are some interesting things I found while researching these stories. I only scratched the surface:

From “A Love Letter to Dr. Christine Blasey Ford” by me too. (https://metoomvmt.org/a-love-letter-to-dr-christine-blasey-ford/)

“… Our generation has found in you what those before us found in Professor Anita Hill:
a heroism based not on greed, ego, violence, and self-serving nationalism but truth, vulnerability, and the courage to sacrifice one’s own safety for the greater good. When you stood there in front of us, Dr. Ford, we found a heroism we could not only believe in, but become.

Then you began testifying. You remained steady, brilliant, and brave.
You answered every question carefully, thoroughly, honestly.
When you didn’t know, you said “I don’t know,” and you let that stand.
When you said “indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter, the uproarious laughter,” our spines straightened and we remembered that while our stories
are different, our battle is the same.

We are at war with that kind of laughter.
As we inched closer and closer to our televisions, the hurt versions of ourselves we’d tucked away peeked out of their boxes to watch a hero speak for them. We reminded ourselves, each other, and you—to breathe.
Our love went out to you from every inch of the globe and somehow, all that energy connected. That day, we became freshly united.

Dr. Ford, the result of your testimony runs deeper and wider than who sits on that court seat.

You showed a world of discounted people what courage looks like. You showed us that survival is ongoing and that the journey, while fraught, is also essential. You reminded us that we are neither powerless nor alone because we have the truth—and we have each other.

Your sacrifice was not made in vain.
Like you did, we will continue to show up for ourselves and each other.
We will bring all of ourselves—our pain, fear, and anger—and we will stand in front of power and we will tell the truth. Even if we shake: we will tell our stories….”

Jane Mayer writes, in New Yorker November 1, 2017, talking about Anita Hill’s story and the Harvey Weinstein sexual-harassment scandal, and comparing it to Trump’s ineffectual accusers (even after the “grab them by the pussy” recording surfaced). “Sexual harassment is about power, not sex, and it has taken women of extraordinary power to overcome the disadvantage that most accusers face. As Susan Faludi, the author of Backlash: the Undeclared War Against Women, put it in an e-mail to me, ‘Power belongs only to the celebrities these days. If only Trump had harassed Angelina Jolie . . .’”
—https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/anita-hill-on-weinstein-trump-and-a-watershed-moment-for-sexual-harassment-accusations

Any search will bring you video of Dr Blasey’s testimony. Here is a link to her written testimony:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:2018_09_26_Written_Testimony_of_Dr_Christine_Blasey_Ford.pdf&page=5
Here is a link to Hill’s 1991 testimony on c-span: https://www.c-span.org/video/?22097-1/clarence-thomas-confirmation-hearing

Here is a brilliant summary looking back on Hill’s testimony by Liza Mundy in Politico, September 23, 2018. The link: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/09/23/rewatched-anita-hill-testimony-kavanaugh-metoo-220526
And a quote: “If there is one note of hope in the whole mess, it is this: Much as Hill’s reputation was smeared in 1991, there are women, and men, who would argue today that she is an exemplar. For me, she is up there with Rosa Parks: courageous, staunch, calm, not to be moved. Rewatching the hearings is like rereading Anna Karenina and realizing, once more, how brilliant it is—and for different reasons than you perceived the first time. She was there to prophesy, articulating patterns of behavior that much of the rest of the country would take decades to pinpoint and understand.”