When I came out in 2009 to my church, it did not go as I’d hoped it would. But it was music that strengthened me. According to Hymnary, a database of all hymns and hymnals online, there are 6,165 bears in hymns that have been used in Christian churches. They might be “bearing the cross” or “bearing one another’s burdens” or ask us to help them “bear the light” or ask God to “bear us safely over.” Many hymns sung every week have a bear in them. Because I identified with the “bear” community of gay men, I felt like this was a little love note sent by God every Sunday to strengthen me, and so I would sing the hymns as I always would, but I’d be extra loud and strong on the word “bear.”
I’ve mentioned before that I had some leftover grief from that time fifteen years ago, some that bubbled up while I was watching Star Trek with Joey one night. I cried so hard and didn’t know why. I thought I’d worked through all of that years ago. So I went on a journey to find healing. Part of that journey involved creating 9 paintings that I want to share with you. They are images crafted by grief and pain and hope. I did them intuitively, just listening to what my heart was upset about, what it wanted to say, what it wanted to see. I discovered all these protective, strong bears were still there in my head and heart. Many of these paintings surprised me, but they also make my heart glad to see them. And I’m glad to start sharing them with you. I hope they make you glad too.
Originals and prints are available in the comments.
“Day by Day, He Gladly Bears and Cheers Me,” (11 x 15) Jerome Stueart, watercolor, mixed media on paper.
As events ramp up, as rights continue to be stripped away, and good people are hurt, kidnapped, enslaved, fired, bullied, silenced, and killed, and when it seems evident that fascism is taking hold in our country, we have few choices but to topple these despots before they build their gilded ballrooms and settle in like Long-Covid in our White House.
I call this painting, “Topple,” and I list some ideas for toppling at a local level:
call your representatives–bug the hell out of them.
vote them out when you are able to
speak out at town meetings, on the radio, on TV, on Youtube, FB, Instagram, anywhere you can
create art, music, little libraries, banners, flags, protest signs, dance, anything that allows you to either a) address what is happening in some creative way, or b) circumvent the hopelessness and despair that can creep in by creating something beautiful, fun, outrageous, daring, dynamic, peaceful to keep the Light going
refuse to work for corrupt governments. If everyone in Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s office refused to come to work, he would be alone; if Trump’s staff quit or refused to come to work for one week, he would falter (and at Mar-a-Lago). While I know that much of his cabinet are loyal to him, partly through fear, I wonder if Hyatt Hotels could shelter the staff as well as they shelter fleeing Texas Democrats.
strike–though this sounds like the previous point, a general strike is all of us just shutting down the whole country. Doing it now when they don’t have AI back-ups for your jobs, is better. Perhaps a few days of this would change things.
Run for Office. Challenge the Republicans in your district–run on ALL of the things that Trump and Republicans are taking away from every citizen. Make the Midterms about seeing what the LEGISLATIVE branch can do without the President.
I’m sure there are other things we can do to disrupt the system, take down the billionaires, and force change in this country. The rich have always, historically, underestimated the people and the people have surprised them every time.
Together, when we are fighting for the same things, we are unstoppable. We just have to realize that we are essentially on the same side and always have been. Realize and discern who are your allies (most likely anyone who makes less than a million a year is your ally by default! Run with that.)
TOPPLE. TOPPLE the Oligarchy.
*This illustration depicts a mass uprising to metaphorically disrupt billionaires, tyrants, and despots by metaphorically unseating them from their giant chairs of power through all the ways I iterate on the illustration and in the post itself and does not suggest or depict or condone violence. This ain’t Jan 6, y’all.
“Grandmother Rapunzel Knows What to Do With A Tower,” by Jerome Stueart (11 x 15) watercolor, mixed media on paper.
I wondered what an older Rapunzel might teach us about how we live with the past, how we get over our towers, and how we might transform them.
Rapunzel had a lot of “Tower” moments.” She lived inside a tower moment created by great upheaval and change when she was traded to a witch as a baby and raised in the tower, isolated, trapped. The Witch, as mother figure, wanted to control what she saw, what she did, who she knew, what she thought. In Sondheim’s “Into the Woods,” the witch is just an over-protective mother; in Disney’s version, she is Dame Gothel and uses the girl’s hair for immortality. In the Disney version (Tangled, 2010) Rapunzel transforms her tower inside to something beautiful–always “repainting” her childhood, the isolation, as a place of joy. I liked that — but I also thought an older Rapunzel, someone we never ever see, might be able to give us some pointers.
Fairy tales could have lessons for Elders too if we heard how the story continued.
In my reimagined Rapunzel here, she tries to thrive inside the tower, even making a swing out of her hair. If there are suitors, they are scared off by the witch. Rapunzel eventually outlives the witch, but she is left with the tower.
What do you do with the Tower you are left with?
Examine the Tower from the Inside
As a writer, I have been circling around tower moments in my own life, trying to see them honestly, not relive them, and write about them, so that maybe I can put the tower behind me. But it is hard to look closely at your tower without feeling trapped, or feeling the pain of what it was like inside that tower. People who hurt me are long gone; circumstances have changed. But I am still in the tower because I don’t know how to climb down.
Rapunzel had her hair, but she’d have to remove it to leave. There’s no door at the bottom. In some versions of the fairy tale, she makes a ladder of straw and climbs down — so maybe there doesn’t have to be a sacrifice, but getting out of your tower is not always easy. They tend to travel with you.
Before I can leave though, I need to understand what my tower is, and how it shaped me going forward. It’s hard to look closely at your tower but I don’t think we can escape them without understanding them first — and understanding how we ourselves are NOT our towers.
My Birthmother, Laurie, as a spiritualist on stage, listening to the dead who are trying to give her messages to relay to those in the audience. Part of the illustrations for the essay.
My essay, “The Dead Viking My Birthmother Gave Me,” is up over at GEIST Magazine online. It’s an essay about adoption, being queer, being lonely in the Yukon during Winter, and spiritual differences between a birthmother and son that include what one might do with a hunky centuries-old Viking spirit guide, and it’s all true from what I can remember.
Some of the illustrations that were published in the article that I did weren’t able to be put in the online version because of technical difficulties, so here they are:
“Tough Love for Billionaires, or Have We Got an Asteroid for You!” (11 x 15) watercolor, mixed media on paper.
Do we need names on these dinosaurs or can you imagine who they are?
I know the real asteroid in the news has been downgraded from being a concern for Earth, and that’s …WHEW! However, when it comes to metaphorical asteroids, I think we’ve seen how effective our collective action can be. More of us than them. Perhaps Friday will get the attention of a few dinosaurs.
I hope you take a moment to shop only local and small on Feb 28th and not give money to big box stores–really those stores that supported Trump or pulled back their DEI initiatives.
We think we can only affect change through voting, but that restricts us to such few opportunities over several years.
We can make changes through withholding our money. And this affects billionaires and CEOs the most.
Join me on Feb 28 for the Big Economic Blackout and then several others that are planned.
This is a different kind of march, a different kind of protest.
Bezos, Zuckerberg, Musk, Trump, and others need to feel your power too.
Join me this Friday, FEB 28th.
Note: I just cut a blue square out of some paper and it sat there on the painting when I made the photo–so it’s not painted on there. This is why Jerome must learn Photoshop and digital editing.
“Consider the Half-Life of Roses,” Jerome Stueart, (11 x 15) watercolor, watercolor pencil, mixed media on paper.
A satyr in a painting stops his play to smell the roses again before they are gone. My mother keeps dried roses in the kitchen window, and I know they still hold a beautiful smell. So much of the rose lingers after the rose dies. Roses have a long, long half-life. They don’t have to stay beautiful to hold a room spellbound. They give joy long after they can hold their blooms up, or keep their petals on. Old Roses are the most underestimated, and therefore give the most joy when we stop for a moment and smell them. “Oh, it’s still there.” Proving that their influence lasts so much longer than their lives. For years and years and years to come.
Hope you take time this week to enjoy everything around you.
At the end of January, I found my painting, “The Gulf of Empathy,” going viral, quite by accident. I want to tell you a little about what I learned through going viral — and for what “going viral,” I think, means for the larger moment in time.
After the painting went viral, seen by hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of people around the world, I knew this moment was bigger than me, and the outpouring of love and support I received as an artist was as much a testament to Bishop Budde, speaking truth in the face of malevolent power. Her words that day spoke to millions of people.
Her message was profound — and we need to hear more of this side of Christianity, rather than the hate-filled rhetoric of exclusion, racism, sexism, and violence that seems to be what the evangelical side of Christianity, the ones who get to voice the “Christian response” in the media, offers. The one that’s also been promoted to Trump’s Office of Faith, which will be searching for “anti-Christian bias” in the United States. But whose Christianity, which bias?
The rest of the world — the people I heard from — felt more promising. They are full of empathy and compassion, and I got the emails and responses to prove it. From everywhere.
The world is with you, Bishop Budde, and with those who stand up for the marginalized, the unprotected, and who stand up to tyranny and megalomaniacs and oligarchs. People around the globe understand, on an international diplomacy level, on a war-mongering level, that everyone is in danger with Trump and Elon Musk in power. And they find hope in reminding him, and us, what the role of a leader should be.
This is why, I think, a little painting went viral.
“The Gulf of Empathy,” is an 11 x 15 watercolor and mixed media painting based on how I felt about the real-life moment Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde delivered her sermon at the inauguration. In the painting, I show the Bishop standing with hundreds of people, her arms outstretched to protect them, as Donald Trump, his administration and the billionaires stand on the other side of a great gulf, which I call “the Gulf of Empathy,” a play on the Gulf of Mexico, something he purposefully refuses to acknowledge as well. It is another great gulf that he has trouble bridging.
“At Winter Solstice, You Must Birth Your Own Sun,” Jerome Stueart, (11 x 15) watercolor and mixed media on paper.
Before Christmas, I had the pleasure of joining my partner, Joey, and members of his family and longtime friends out at Wortroot, a forested acreage near the border of TN and VA made up of a collection of barns and houses that were collectively owned since the 70s and housed creative people, including Joey for a while, on a piece of land that is part commune and part nature preserve. The people who gathered at the celebration were all fun, creative people of multiple generations. Families who have known each other because the original set of friends bought the place and raised kids there and came back again and again for celebrations.
Shortest day of the year. Longest night. Winter Solstice BEGINS the Sun’s gradual increase over the rest of the year, making days longer and longer and giving us more sunshine. It’s the birth of a new year. You don’t have to be Pagan to celebrate it. In fact, since it is celebrated about 4 or 5 days before Christmas, you probably already celebrate a version of it. During the Winter Solstice, you “birth the sun” and Christ1ans celebrate the “birth of the Son.” You celebrate around a big evergreen tree, light candles, sing songs, eat food with friends and family.
This was my first time there (though some had met me at Summer Solstice). It was SO nice to be introduced as Joey’s partner. I helped lead a parade of singing, dancing, children with jingle bells on through the house! I got a fantastic chocolate cake recipe (I seem to collect those now!!). I ate delicious food, talked to many fascinating people, and then we spent some good time out at the bonfire.
I looked at this bonfire, where the flying cinders and ash resembled snow, and watched how the warmth of the families and their love for each other were, in many ways, creating this sun. Our LOVE creates (the sun for) our new year. What year are we creating? It doesn’t matter what year someone else in p0wer tries to create–we can fuel Our Sun by standing together and pushing back.
Winter Solstice is not the only time we have bonfires, though, and not the only time we can infuse the Sun with the warmth of our love for each other. Imbolc (FEB 1) just passed, and bonfires are popular then! My former experiences with bonfires were mostly college game night ones! Or campfires. Or Whitehorse’s Burning Away the Winter Blues (in late Feb/early March). Those work too!
I tried to capture in this painting, the love, the playfulness, the way a bonfire can bring us together to watch in fascination, to reflect and meditate on the year, to burn away, perhaps, the dross of the old year— things that disappointed us, ways of believing that no longer seem true, circumstances, bad relationships–all get sacrificed into the fire, in a belief that better things are being built and created through the love we share right now.
That’s the promise of the Longest Night: the light will always come back, the light will always come back. And we can build it back. You and me and a bunch of kids and families and friends on a cold dark night.
_____________________________
I held this painting back from posting it for a month or two because of the LA Fires. But others reminded me that we needed to see the warmth of this moment too–that fire isn’t all destruction.
May the warmth of your love, the love of your chosen families, friends, (who also choose you) keep you warm and safe and hopeful that the Sun we are creating will benefit us ALL.
In our struggles, pr0tests, and resilience, we create a powerful Sun of the People. I believe if we don’t give up, it will push out the darkness, slowly but surely.
The light always comes back; it just doesn’t happen all at once.
If you would like a print or sticker or card with this image, please see the sidebar on this website for REDBUBBLE and ORDER PRINTS, respectively. NOTE: Shipping on prints can’t begin till Feb 17th.
(Later this week, I have a much more provocative image! For now, get cozy and warm. )
The folks at Redbubble have reviewed “The Gulf of Empathy” and have approved it. Here on this site you can make other things with the print.
Part of the proceeds will go to charities that protect and defend LGBTQ and Immigrant communities. There is no wait on shipping for these items, so you will get them faster than the prints over on space. If you wanted t-shirts or mugs or buttons, I have those. See the first comment with the address.
Thank you so much for the love you have given this piece of art. I had no idea it would touch hundreds of thousands of people as it has. I know it reflects the love and appreciation that you feel for Bishop Budde and her sermon during the Inauguration, a sermon about empathy, about love, about mercy, about defending those who need our protection right now–which is quickly becoming EVERYONE.
We all need to be protecting each other right now. I want to help do that in any way I can. So, first I will use this miraculous accident that happened, and I will ALSO call my representatives and make it awkward, and make palm cards and post “know your r1ghts” flyers where I can.
Please pass this to anyone you think would like to know about these. Thank you!
NOTE: Redbubble only has things the Squarespace Site does not have. So if you want PRINTS or SETS of CARDS go to Jerome Stueart Art on Squarespace. If you want the other items you see below: stickers, mugs, totes, pillows— please go to Redbubble
space. If you wanted t-shirts or mugs or buttons, I have those. See the first comment with the address.
Bear Witness 