SHE PERSISTED - Provincetown Artist Sees Hope in Inauguration of First Female Vice President
Kathi Scrizzi Driscoll, Cape Cod Times, January 2021
Provincetown Artist Jo Hay sits in front of her oil painting of Vice President - elect Kamila Harris which is on display at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum. The painting is part of “Persisters” an ongoing series of large scale paintings by Hay. Merrily Cassidy / Cape Cod Times
PROVINCETOWN — Artist Jo Hay finally feels a sense of hope this week, buoyed by the strong women who have helped guide her way through four years of Donald Trump’s presidency. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Young firebrand climate activist Greta Thunberg.
In the past few months Hay has added Kamala Harris, who will be sworn in Wednesday as the first woman and person of color to serve as vice president, and Georgia voting rights activist Stacey Abrams to 13 other women in her “Persisters” series of 5-by-4-foot portraits. The British-born artist has painted women who are making a difference and upending limitations often placed on them by men.
The project, she said, has been her “mode of survival” for navigating what she has considered the political turmoil of the Trump years. And a new phase of Hay’s art recently contributed in a small way to turning the page at the White House and in Congress.
Hay described Harris' inauguration as “just an enormous celebration of what feels like, finally, some kind of forward momentum in the country, in the world, in the belief that women can do the job.”
Calling Harris a remarkable figure of the moment who is “a fantastic force for the greater good,” Hay said in a phone interview that today “feels like the beginning of where we need to go” for women.
“It’s this jewel moment of finally realizing what was before and what is to come," she said. "Now we have to utilize it properly, we have to respect it and help make it work.”
Hay’s portrait of Harris is on display through April as part of an exhibit at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum. It is, like all the other “Persisters,” a direct-gaze, straight-on view of the new vice president from the shoulders up. Hay likened the idea of her paintings, which also include Sen. Elizabeth Warren, soccer player Megan Rapinoe and gun-control advocate Emma Gonzalez, to a mug shot, with the artist not “inflicting any kind of composition on the portrait.” She said she wants the viewer to see the subject in as straightforward and honest a way as possible.
Hay previously had sold small print versions of her paintings. Last fall, she and her wife, Carolyn Kramer, created versions of the Harris and Ginsburg portraits for T-shirts and buttons.
All have been sold through Michelle Axelson’s Womencrafts feminist book and gift shop on Commercial Street, and the women have used the art for a higher goal. Sales of Ginsburg pins helped last fall to contribute $1,200 to the Helping Our Women organization in Provincetown, and sales of Harris pins paid the vice president’s victory forward by raising $500 for the the Fair Fight Action voting rights organization founded by Abrams, whom Hay called the "ultimate game-changer" for making a difference in flipping both of Georgia’s Senate seats to the Democrats.
Axelson was grateful for that opportunity because the time of year and loss of business during the pandemic made it impossible to donate on her own. “To be able to offer something and raise money … to have the public support a common cause and then to be able to put that forward, is really powerful,” she said.
The T-shirts have the art on the front and phrases such as “trailblazer” and “groundbreaker” on the backs. In just a month or so, Axelson estimates she has sold more than 90 of the two shirts, as well as 350 of the pins. Although those and prints of both paintings — as well as the new Abrams portrait — are on sale at womencraftsptown.com, most of those sales were in person at the store.
Axelson said she loves “knowing people are walking around with their Kamala shirts, knowing their story ... and knowing the feeling of pride.” She planned to join a group of friends via Zoom to watch the inauguration, and all planned to wear Harris shirts and/or buttons.
“It feels like such a special thing to have and, yes, obviously it’s of the moment, but (Harris is) … going to make a difference in our life for a long time to come,” Axelson said.
She described Hay’s art as much admired and something special, but also bold in its support of women.
“I’m heartened to see people not only interested in having this art in their home but also wearing this art as a sign of support.”
Hay’s “Persisters” portraits have gotten strong reactions before. Justice Ginsburg liked a photo a friend showed her of Hay’s portrait so much that she ordered a print to hang in her chambers — then sent a hand-written thank-you note.
“I could have retired at that moment. It was such a surprise,” Hay said. After attending the Women’s March in Washington, D.C., in January 2017, “I painted these paintings for myself, for forward momentum, to keep myself afloat, not thinking really anybody (I painted) might see it. … (Her note) was such a lovely moment.”
Hay also painted MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow, looking to “find somebody who could help me navigate my way through what was happening” after the 2016 election.
Maddow, who is often in Provincetown, walked into Kramer’s art gallery a couple of years ago.
“She was overwhelmed by the painting and I was overwhelmed by her,” Hay remembered. “We had an amazing conversation and she’s really lovely.”
The Ginsburg painting has been hanging at Womencrafts since the justice’s death in September, and Axelson said many people have taken a photo with it. The work has also helped to spark conversation with all generations, and she said that she's felt comforted by it herself, especially while watching confirmation hearings for Ginsburg's replacement, Justice Amy Coney Barrett.
Women cried when six of the “Persisters” portraits hung in Kramer’s gallery a couple of years ago. The persisting women “mean so much to other women … (they) know and love them and trust them and support them,” Hay said.
“So, there were often tears, and people asking me, ‘Can I sleep in here? Can I be overnight with them? Can I just be in this room, because I feel positive with them, I feel like there’s hope.’”
Eleven of the portraits hung together for the first time at a 2019 exhibit at Provincetown Commons. That show made Axelson a fan and also made Hay realize the scope of the series she now hopes to collect in a book.
"(When) I had them all gazing at me, it was quite a moment of realizing what I had actually made,” she said. “I realized the power of a group of women together. Both as portraits, but also in life. My experience is if you get a group of women together, they can move mountains.”
As she hopes will happen with Harris at the White House.
“Women have been holding things up for ages," Hay said. "For probably ever, right? I don’t feel like I’ve reached a moment of hurrah (with the inauguration), it’s just a moment of, ‘Now do you see? Now? Let us just keep pushing, and keep your eyes open.’”
And in her art, Hay is energized to keep spotlighting women who have been important during her lifetime and have made a mark on history.
“It almost feels as if I could do this for the rest of my life. And hopefully there will be positive change.”