Skunk - Near Wasp
Prelude
The formation of the Great-American Middle-class
Page 7 of 101
It's said that a picture is worth a thousand words. And for those artists who are lucky, those words will be found in a review by a newspaper's paid-by-the-word, MFA art critic (almost always a failed artist whose critique is intended more to rationalize his or her own shortcomings, as an artist, than to enlighten the reader).
Allowing for the self-disparaging possibility (perhaps for good cause) that it's due to my own shortcomings as an artist, and not that of the medium, the statements I feel I can make as a painter and not have it result in my being and illustrator, are limited.
The SKUNK Near-Wasp Making-it In America Attainment Test is my attempt, by combining prose with parallel graphics, to make ludicrous the recent nonsensical stress on the ethnic roots of and by virtually every American - as if we were not a people with a national identity. It seems that the only time we come to realize our oneness as Americans, is when we serve in the milatary or visit another country.
If not countered, the current attempts to pigeon-hole every one of us into one or another hyphenated category, virtually always for questionable reason, can only lead to the polarization of our peoples -- which, in turn, will most assuredly lead to the eventual disintegration of the nation. By ridiculing the ludicrous, hyphenated-based braggadocio voiced by the nation's losers and exploited and catered to by crafty politicians, political-action committees, hate-groups, foreign governments, sales organizations, newspapers and their ilk -- is my way of countering the self-deluding adoption, acceptance and stress on having an ethnic identity. It should be noted, that in every nation where ethicity has been stressed (usually as a political tool), the result has been internal strife, turmoil and its eventual dissolution.
Though unquestionably, America still offers a better chance for her citizens to engage, fairly and equitably, in the pursuit of happiness -- than does any other nation, we, as Americans, must continually do our part to maintain that ability for all our citizens -- whether like a Norman Rockwell, by lauding the merits of the nation and her people; or by brutally exposing the nation's worst traits like a Thomas Nast or Upton Sinclair. The best medicine if often hard to swallow.
Markand Thakar