However these children suffer the stigma of having been a foster child and they are considered by some to be damaged goods. Most are special needs children. “Special Needs” is a scary term that means simply any child other than a healthy white infant. Some of them have endured physical and emotional abuse. The average age is eight years old and most are kids of color. They are not, however, lost causes. We can recycle them back into society by promoting their adoption into permanent families.
As an adoptive parent, my motives in producing this series of paintings are not only to increase awareness of this issue, but also to implant change in the minds of the viewers. I hope that the visual message of abuse, rescue, and recycling in my paintings causes the observer to realize the need for social change. We simply cannot turn our collective backs on what will become the next generation of social deviants without the intervention of caring individuals and families. These children are real, their circumstances are unfortunate, and their future is uncertain. Have they really been rescued if they are freed to grow up as wards of the state? I realize that most people will never adopt one of these children. Still, I want people to question their attitudes towards adoption, mixed race families, same-sex couples, and towards single parent families.
My approach to the use of color and composition is intended to lure the viewer into the paintings. Using monotypes, made by the process of gelatin printing, I have captured portions of the faces of anonymous children who are representative of the ones who wait. I have also used the same printing technique to generate text. The words used to suggest what the children have been through are always written in reverse as if looking back through a window with type on the front. Larger, bolder type, written left to right, spells out where the children are now and, finally, what they need: permanence. The text spells out the children’s past, present, and hopefully, future. In response to the challenging subject matter, my painting style in this series is chaotic, emotional, and dynamic. I take inspiration from the Abstract Expressionists such as Willem de Kooning and the later works of Gerhard Richter as well as the next generation of painters such as Jasper Johns, who mastered using words as symbols. My series Recycling Children uses the language of color, images, and text in a dramatic way that social commentary at the same time as it is art.
