Essay by Rob Shetterly for my Signs of the Times exhibit announcement

Artists, if they have any obligation to their culture, are obligated in times like these to tell the truth that strips away denial, to tell us what we need to know to lead honest lives, make moral choices, and advance the cause of hope in our communities. When politicians, corporations and the major media are complicit in hiding the truth, the burden on artists is immense. Natasha Mayers has always assumed that burden. And, if there was ever a show that was more than the sum of its parts, her Signs of the Times is it.

Robert Shetterly: “The Obligations of Artists” convocation talk at USM-Lewiston-Auburn

First I want to thank the University of Southern Maine and Robyn Holman for promoting this exhibit — my short talk will make it clear how important I think it is.
(INSERT FROM END OF TALK: This show of Natasha’s is very important because it rejects the creative economy in favor of the sustainable economy. It embraces the creative society, makes its allegiance with a just economy and a humane community. Natasha, when most other artists were looking the other way, always recognized that the house was on fire, because she has always had the imagination and courage to identify with the disadvantaged and outcast whose world is always in flames.
The obligation of the artist in times like these is to explore, to report, to reject cant, to spit out the artificial sweeteners in our
commercial, suicidal brew. We honor explorers because they are courageous. William Sloane Coffin said there are no other virtues without courage. So we honor the artists who have the courage to tell us the truth. For this is what Keats meant about truth and beauty, they can not be separated. And if compassion and justice are virtues ( and beautiful), they will not exist if there is not courage to demand them. Without that courage we will not survive — either individually of collectively.

Why there might be no more images of mine on Common Dreams

Dear Common Dreams Editor:

A SELECTION OF Comments received by Natasha Mayers about Common Dreams art (May-June)

Dear Natasha, your art has been illuminating.. necessarian..gut wretching.. winningly instinctive.. .. remote and warm. Thank-You

luv the texture’d spread of it all!

that extra heartbeat! you really put it out there..Kudos. Judy

Hi Natasha,

I wanted to introduce myself to you because I watched and absorbed each and everyone of your artworks
created on commondreams last year.
I am a public school art teacher and did indeed share your work with my students
and your work blew them away. I can think of no other artist I have ever shown them
who made such an impact.
As an artist myself, I must tell you I so respect your visceral candor, your
unapologetic witness, your commitment.
I wish I had the money to pay for a book of your work and help you
write lesson plans for art students based on your work.
That is my dream.
Thank you for your energy and dedication to
sharing your powerful views with the internet world.
I know my students and I are forever changed by looking and interpreting
your work.  Shana

Natasha, Natasha — who are you? Are you famous? Does the New Yorker know your work? Or Mother Jones? Harper’s? I’m sitting in front of my little computer tears running down my face. You are a force of nature. Powerful, powerful stuff! Robert W.

I am so pleased your work will be a continuing presence on Common Dreams. You have left me both breathless and full of hope. Not since my first sight of Guernica have I been so moved.

To order prints/originals of images: All images appearing on www.commondreams.org since May 1 can be viewed at www.flickr.com/photos/natashamayers

Color prints, approximately 11″x17″, signed, suitable for framing $35 (mounted on foam core, shrinkwrapped, ready to hang $45)

I DON’T EARN ANY MONEY MAKING AN IMAGE EACH DAY FOR COMMONDREAMS.ORG. I RELY ON OCCASIONAL SALES OF ARTWORK TO MY LOYAL FANS TO KEEP ME GOING.

When you buy 3 prints, I’ll send a fourth one to your Republican Uncle for free.

Artist-in-Residence (Maine Arts Commission)

Natasha Mayers

 

This artist is an Education Artist.

Natasha is a painter who supervises group murals on or off walls, indoor or outdoor, working with any theme. Recent subjects have been the history of immigration, the world’s bio-regions,local heroes and heroines, and community history painted on utility poles. She teaches a variety of art activities appropriate for multi-cultural education, parades, or dealing with personal or global issues. Natasha is interested in collaborative residencies, combining painting with other art forms, leads teacher workshops in mural painting for the classroom, and has extensive experience with schoolchildren of all ages and adults with disabilities. She has supervised over 500 murals! Currently she is teaching drawing at the university level and is artist-in-residence with Peace Action Maine. She recently received the second annual Arthur Hall award for “an artist whose work, community service and commitment to their craft inspires others around them to reach to their highest potential”

Contact Information

ANNOUNCEMENT FROM COMMONDREAMS.ORG

ANNOUNCEMENT FROM WWW.COMMONDREAMS.ORG
Today we are adding a new visual feature to our site: a daily artwork by Natasha Mayers.
We would like to take this opportunity to introduce our readers to Natasha Mayers, Common Dreams’ new artist-in-residence. She has been called Maine’s most committed activist-artist.
We couldn’t resist Natasha’s offer to make a piece of art for our regular email of headlines, news, and views.
Our intent for this new collaboration is based on the following proposal from Natasha to Common Dreams:
The art will be about a current issue. Like a political cartoonist “commenting” on the news, I will create, in a photo collage or painting, a playful and/or deadly serious response each day, a thought-provoking, open-for-interpretation visual image. I will want it to be a surprise for your readers, something fresh and unexpected to look forward to seeing.
Since I often work in series, expect to see the same issue dealt with in various ways for a few days, with a touch of irony, humor, pattern, exuberant color, and eccentric configurations.
Art can play an important role in helping us see, ask hard questions, and in moving us to act. It can sometimes touch us and make us feel, not just know, the important issues. Art can help us feel our feelings when things are scary, and help us reflect on who we are and what we are doing as a nation. It can help us get more in touch with our unease about what’s going on, and help us sense the emergency and the madness of it. Grief can open the heart to courage and compassion, and outrage can move us to an active and moral response.
Natasha would also like to find and present images about current events by other artists. We hope to expand the collaboration in the coming months.
To see a comprehensive list of shows she has been in, publications, collections, etc. Check out her site at http://natashamayers.wordpress.com/
Check out her artwork stored at http://www.flickr.com/photos/natashamayers/

Natasha Mayers Bio

Natasha Mayers has been called Maine’s most committed activist-artist. She has supervised more than 500 murals as a touring artist with the Maine Arts Commission since 1975. The painted utility poles in her town which depict local history were featured in Lucy Lippard’s book, The Lure of the Local. She is artist-in-residence for Peace Action Maine, and was a National Endowment for the Arts Millennium Artist, creating community art in Portsmouth, Ohio, exploring local views of identity, values, and sense of place, to demonstrate how involvement in the arts can improve the quality of community life. In 2005 she received the Arthur Hall Award “for an artist whose work, community service and commitment to their craft inspires others around them to reach to their highest potential.”

Report on Venezuela: A Thriving Work in Progress

The Lincoln County News
February 21, 2007
By Natasha Mayers

Just back from a two-week study tour in Venezuela with Global Exchange, I am inspired by what we heard and saw. Many Venezuelans urged us to let people here know that “Democracy is alive and well in Venezuela”, “there’s no dictator here”, “for the first time we have hope”, and “we don’t need any lessons in democracy from the United States”.

In fact, region-wide polling by Latinobarometro shows Venezuelans nearly tied with Uruguay for first place in considering their country to be democratic, and again second only to Uruguay in their satisfaction with their democracy, as well as the most politically active of any Latin American country. These results, plus Chávez’ landslide victory in December with 63 percent of the vote (the highest of nine elections in Latin America last year), indicate that the government is delivering at least some of what its citizens voted for. Chávez, elected in 1999, has helped redistribute wealth and increased social services, including greater investment in education and health care and housing.

Signs of the Times – artist’s statement

ARTIST’S STATEMENT – NATASHA MAYERS
Signs of the times is a daily visual journal of intruding news images and events and feelings, my attempt to make sense (and nonsense) of the times in which we live. Individual painted signs and symbols are configured into larger asymmetric “signs” with compound meanings.