ME Labor Artist's Father Earned Bronze Star In Korea

From an email.

Ouch: In a statement issued on Wednesday, Ms. Taylor wrote that her father
served as a forward observer during the Korean War and was awarded a Bronze
Star. “He was a man who stood by every word he spoke,” she wrote. “It was so
heartbreaking to learn that this controversy may have started with an
anonymous letter comparing this mural to a North Korean propaganda poster.
Perhaps we should hang my father’s Bronze Star for his service in Korea in
the now empty reception area of the Maine Department of Labor until the
mural is returned, as a symbol of the importance of remembering our history,
and not shuttering it away.”


March 30, 2011, *10:45 AM*Creator of Maine Labor Mural Addresses
Controversy<http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/30/creator-of-maine-labor-mural-addresses-controversy/>
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE<http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/author/steven-greenhouse/>

Judy Taylor, the artist who painted the mural removed from Maine’s
Department of Labor <http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/24/us/24lepage.html>,
said on Wednesday that she was sad to learn that the governor’s decision to
move the mural might have started with an anonymous letter comparing the
mural to North Korean brainwashing.

Gov. Paul LePage of Maine had ordered the removal of her 36-foot-wide mural,
which showed scenes from Maine’s labor history, after concluding that it was
“one-side” toward labor. Mr. LePage, who has been widely criticized for the
move, ordered the removal after his office received an anonymous letter
saying the mural was reminiscent of “communist North Korea where they use
these murals to brainwash the masses.”

In a statement issued on Wednesday, Ms. Taylor wrote that her father served
as a forward observer during the Korean War and was awarded a Bronze Star.

“He was a man who stood by every word he spoke,” she wrote. “It was so
heartbreaking to learn that this controversy may have started with an
anonymous letter comparing this mural to a North Korean propaganda poster.
Perhaps we should hang my father’s Bronze Star for his service in Korea in
the now empty reception area of the Maine Department of Labor until the
mural is returned, as a symbol of the importance of remembering our history,
and not shuttering it away.”

Ms. Taylor won a 2007 competition in which the Maine Arts Commissioner
choose an artist to do a mural detailing Maine’s labor history. She said she
spent more than a year on the mural, doing extensive historical research as
well as numerous sketches based on historical fact.

She denied that the mural was one-sided. It had 11 panels showing historical
scenes, including shoe-making apprentices during colonial times, Maine
lumberjacks, a “Rosie the Riveter” at the Bath Iron Works shipyard during
World War II and a 1986 paper mill strike.

“The purpose of the mural is historical, the artistic intent to honor,” Ms.
Taylor wrote. “It belongs to the people of Maine and needs to be accessible
to them.”

Mr. LePage has suggested that the mural be placed in a museum, but Ms.
Taylor’s supporters have begun an effort to persuade the governor to return
the mural to the labor department. Mr. LePage’s aides said the mural was not
neutral and made employers feel uncomfortable when they entered the Labor
Department’s lobby.

Ms. Taylor said that she has long painted people working, writing that her
first painting as a child was of her grandfather on his farm in Nebraska,
“in the context of his work and life.”
“Painting the mural is what I have trained my entire life to do,” she wrote.
“The theme of figure and context is what I set out to chronicle in my career
as an artist.”

Ms. Taylor received some strong backing this week from Lynn Pasquarella, the
president of Mount Holyoke College, the alma mater of Frances Perkins, the
nation’s first female labor secretary. She wrote to Governor LePage
criticizing his decision to remove the mural, and she also wrote a letter to
the editor, published in The New York Times on
Wednesday<http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/30/opinion/l30perkins.html>
.

One panel of the mural shows Ms. Perkins, who is buried in Maine and whose
parents were from Maine. Mr. LePage has ordered the renaming of the
department’s seven conference rooms, one of which is named the “Francis
Perkins” room.

In her letter to Mr. LePage, Ms. Pasquarella wrote, “I was particularly
surprised to read that you were influenced by an anonymous fax comparing the
11-panel mural to North Korean political propaganda, because the act of
removing images commemorating Maine’s history itself conjures thoughts of
rewriting history prevalent in totalitarian regime.”

I worry about him ordering the Diego Rivera Mural out of the Detroit Museum of Art

This one? http://www.npr.org/multimedia/2009/04/rivera/gallery/index.html

Story & video here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103337403

POUT I couldn't get the beautiful image to transfer.

Message left was that I thought that the governor is a blithering idiot, that it's the department of labor for crying out loud and the mural celebrates Maine labor. Also said that I would boycott Maine until the governor was removed via impeachment, recall, or failing to be reelected. That I spend vacation time in Maine every few years, and that Maine doesn't get my money until he's not governor anymore.

It probably doesn't help, but it does feel good to vent.

Gov. LePage's actions since taking office demonstrate he does not have the best interests of his constituents or the state at heart. Rather than visit our relatives in Maine for two weeks this summer, as is our custom, our family will be spending our vacation and our tourist dollars in Massachusetts instead. His policies are bad enough, but the spite, malice and pettiness of removing a perfectly logical mural from the Dept. of Labor reception area became our tipping point. We look forward to returning to your lovely state once this vile man is no longer in office. And as you can see, I have no problem making a complaint without the cowardice of anonymity.

Gee, guilty conscious much? Or just don't want to give the employees ideas about unionizing?