If politics were a painting, the expression wouldn’t be a static study of, say, flowers in a vase on an oh-so-tidy tabletop.
It would be full of etches, shades and nuances.
Lines – squiggled, blurred, defined and otherwise – going this way.
And that way.
Unidentifiable forms, morphing into unified shapes.
Light, shadow and light, again.
Color, always, making its way on a canvas of thought and discourse.
Something that begins as an abstract rendering – which results in concrete application.
If politics were a painting, it would be the one created by Zorrah Lawson that is currently on display at the Monongalia Arts Center, on High Street.
Zorrah, a 15-year-old, home-schooled student from Morgantown, rendered her response in acrylic after an overture from the Morgantown/Kingwood branch of the NAACP.
The chapter, which is known for the Martin Luther King Jr. essay contest it hosts every year for the federal holiday honoring the slain civil rights leader, wanted to do the same for Human Rights Day in Morgantown.
So it put a call for young artists to “visualize” the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery in the U.S. after the Civil War.
If the Emancipation Proclamation started out like an abstract painting, the follow-up legislation, said amendment, made it a defined work – a frame within the framework of America’s founding document.
“I knew about the amendment,” Zorrah said, “but I didn’t know everything about it. It was complex and progressive.”
And maybe poignant, she said, since it was one of the final things Abraham Lincoln worked on before his assassination death in April 1865.
Kevin Gooding, a professor in the WVU Honors College and member of the local NAACP chapter, came up with the visualization idea for the amendment.
“It is true that people think about the Emancipation Proclamation,” the professor said.
“But it’s also true that we don’t always consider the amendment that followed. I think this will be something that will always stay with Zorrah.”
It’s something that’s already with Alexandra Gaujot, a Morgantown artist and educator. Zorrah is one of her students.
Gaujot, who was born in Russia, grew up in Ukraine, under the big shadow of the former Soviet Union.
She came to the U.S. in 1996 and has lived in Morgantown since 2003.
Home is here, she said – but home is also Ukraine.
Gaujot grew up in the mountains, in a region with a coal-mining history. Her father died two years ago, but her mother and the rest of her family are all still in Ukraine.
She’s been able to stay in contact with them since Putin’s invasion, she said.
“People always get trapped in the middle when there’s war,” she said.
Her hope for the world is derived in part, by efforts and observations such as Human Rights Day, which was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in Paris on Dec. 10, 1948.
The Morgantown Human Rights Commission is observing that day here on Sunday, with its Human Rights Day awards ceremony and reception from 4-6 p.m. at the Monongalia Arts Center.
Zorrah is among the people being recognized in the ceremony.
“I am so very proud of her,” Gaujot said.
“I believe arts and music can save the world. That’s Zorrah.”
Zorrah, meanwhile, says she hopes to someday live in a world where no day will be singled out for human rights – because every day will be about human rights.
Just because, she said.
“I’ll be glad when we can all just live together and get along.”
