Cat Woman

d’arches paper, mixed media

I love cats. I love dogs too. Cats are of course, cats, and dramatically different than dogs. They seem much more self contained, they are curious, detail, at times like a piece of moving sculpture, at other times (when they are ready) they are responsive to us, and cuddle, playful. The stillness of cats represents for me the moments within myself of what T.S. Elliot called : ” The still point of the turning world”.

This painting is one I did in 1983 to honor the Gay Pride movement, the title is : Stonewall 5’x10’ mixed media canvas. (copyright:callahanmcdonough.2011)

source: wikipedia

The Stonewall Riots 1969

The Stonewall Inn, taken September 1969. The sign in the window reads: “We homosexuals plead with our people to please help maintain peaceful and quiet conduct on the streets of the Village—Mattachine”.

The Stonewall riots were a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn, in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. They are frequently cited as the first instance in American history when people in the homosexual community fought back against a government-sponsored system that persecuted sexual minorities, and they have become the defining event that marked the start of the gay rights movement in the United States and around the world.

American gays and lesbians in the 1950s and 1960s faced a legal system more anti-homosexual than those of some Warsaw Pact countries. Early homophile groups in the U.S. sought to prove that gay people could be assimilated into society, and they favored non-confrontational education for homosexuals and heterosexuals alike. The last years of the 1960s, however, were very contentious, as many social movements were active, including the African American Civil Rights Movement, the Counterculture of the 1960s, and antiwar demonstrations. These influences, along with the liberal environment of Greenwich Village, served as catalysts for the Stonewall riots.

Jane Fonda, has for many years been one of my ‘she-roes’. As a single Mom I exercised with her videos daily, & I was in sync with her activism for Peace, during the Viet Nam war years. Jane and Oprah together often kept me in stock of hope and going for my life vision, as an artist and Peace activist myself, a single Mom. They feel like my very own friends, ahem, mine and a few million other women. Today’s post with Jane, Joni & Bonnie at dinner touching for me, as I read it, I felt exactly the conversation I would be having as well, if I were there with them. We are lucky to live in a time of some pretty cool peers, of course, include us. Jane continues to rally our involvement, a call to action, find the cause that inspires you and “get involved”.

Thank you Jane.