Julie Lapping Rivera
In September 2018, while working in my studio, I listened intently to the Brett Kavanaugh hearings. My growing frustration with the divisive political climate in this country drove me to consider what, as an artist, I could contribute. Originally drawing inspiration from the New York Times’ “Overlooked” series, which since 2018 has been publishing obituaries of women and minorities previously overlooked by the Times, I began a series of woodcut portraits of some of these women. Learning more about their lives, I felt the need for poetic text to further illuminate and enhance their stories. Thus began an enriching collaboration with an international group of women poets, who continue to contribute poems to the project, inspired by the life of each woman, and by the woodcut images.
