"Swords into Ploughshares"

19 x 26 inches (24 x 36 framed)

Monotype print, graphite, & oil pastel on BFK Rives paper

A piece about the cycle of civilization, quoting the scripture “They shall beat their swords into ploughshares: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” This scripture is famously inscribed on a wall across the street from the United Nations. It’s an image of turning weapons of destruction into farm tools to build and grow.

In Marilyn Robinson’s American masterpiece “Gilead”, a Reverend asks the congregation whether they are “beating their swords into ploughshares, or ploughshares into swords”. I had never considered the reverse of this scripture as a question and challenge, and it is something I wonder daily as I read the news and examine my own actions.

I was asking myself this question while making this piece, not sure which way the swords would go. While a cycle IS represented, the overall weight and energy of the piece is downward, which does nothing but give away my deepest hope that the answer is Swords to Ploughshares. As Martin Luther King said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” This piece is an interpretation of that arc.