True Colors

 

True Colors 

By Tom Wachunas

 

   “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union…”  - preamble to the U.S. Constitution

   “You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time.”   - John Lydgate (originally)

 

   Recent events in Washington are further unwelcome evidence that the societal toxicity rampant in America is not limited to COVID-19. We are afflicted, infected and conflicted by something far more insidious and tragic than any microscopic virus.

    Diagnosis? I don’t know what to precisely call it. And even if I did, I’m fairly certain that in these contentious times many people could come to bloody blows over whether or not it’s true and accurate, or real and relevant. Under our banner of free speech we  might go wee wee wee all the way home to life, liberty and happiness, or to the start of yet another fight.

   So who exactly are ‘We the People,’ and what are we forming? It’s very complicated, this entity of we, of America. Is it nothing more than an ever-growing gray area of existential smudges and smears, shadows and shades? I’m just… a wee bit blue about it.

   True Colors is the name of my fourth in a series of “flag bags” (which began in 2010) – paintings done on flattened paper grocery bags. It’s all at once a remnant, a resignation, a reaction, a rumination. Or a ruination? An icon of debauched ideals and devastated dreams?

   As I said, it’s complicated. Talk amongst yourselves.