Jesica Fromm

What If? My Favorite New History Facts for 2017 Jesica Fromm

I spent the 18 months of the election process unable to work as an artist. I could not justify to myself spending the intensive work time in the studio needed to develop a new series of abstract paintings. I felt that the my nation's political situation was so dire, my time would be better spent in direct political action. But I reminded myself that the artist's role is to goad society, to illuminate the disparities between what is and what might be. I continued to ask myself what approaches to making art which commented on politics were open to me with my particular skills and the history of my oeuvre. Outside events presented themselves to me as cartoon ideas with great frequency.....as, to my great frustration, they did to professional cartoon artists who published theirs long before I could find my own drawing vocabulary. But once I began playing with making collages with appropriated art images I was hooked. I was obsessed with ideas and, as events played out, the scope of the collages varied. Many different approaches became available to me and perhaps another series will follow this one. The results so far are in this book. Jessica Fromm