Art as Protest

A story of siege

I said I was going to publish a second day of foggy morning photos today, but that will have to wait a week. I schedule my posts far ahead of time, but this one must be published in the moment. Sometimes timing matters, even with art.

I started a painting on January 6th with the sole intent of using up a bunch of a color called Moonglow by Daniel Smith. Some have found the color isn’t as lightfast as claimed, which makes me hesitant to use it, now that I know. That said, I’m not sure the painting below, which has been on my wall since 2018, has faded. It rarely gets direct light, however.

The sky and the ground were painted with Moonglow. See how it separates into multiple colors? It did that all on its own with no effort on my part, save my decision about how much water to use. The paint contains three pigments, including a red that fades when diluted.

Ghost Tree by Amy Hunter

I do love Moonglow, as do many artists. You can mix something similar yourself that doesn’t fade, however. Should I do that instead? I can’t think of a scenario where I want to use a pigment that could fade. So I started thinking I should simply play with the mostly full tube I have but not use it for anything I care about. If I just want to throw color around without a plan and “waste it,” this is what I’ll use.

So I started an abstract painting with Moonglow. When the paint dried, I turned the paper around and around, looking for a picture. When I found one, it seemed dark and apocalyptic. Hmmm, I thought. Am I projecting my state of mind onto the paper? Except I wasn’t feeling dark and apocalyptic at the time. Or maybe the events of January 6, 2021 were in the back of my mind? Dunno.

Whatever the case, I figured I’d finish the piece later. Maybe I’d find a less disturbing picture if I waited a bit. I planned to use the painting in a newsletter and talk about how pigments that fade are called fugitive, and that what I paint doesn’t always communicate what I’m feeling at the time. I was going to say that I like having a tube of paint I can simply play with and not care, because otherwise I might simply throw it out, and that would be a waste.

Then today, January 7, 2026 as I begin this newsletter, Renee Good was murdered on the streets of Minneapolis by ICE. The event suddenly gave purpose to the painting I started the night before, and the dark theme appeared prescient and profoundly painful. Here is the result.

We the People by Amy Hunter

I used to be amazed by such complex paintings. How many hours did it take to do all that intricate brush work? How did the artist decide which marks to put where, and how did they know how to make it all pull together with such impact?

The truth is that this was fast and easy to create. The grid-like texture on the rocks was made using scraps from the silicone mesh that I cut to size for my food dehydrator. I just put down some thick areas of Moonglow, put the mesh on top, covered that with plastic wrap and a cookie sheet, and put weights on top to keep some pressure while it dried.

Next, I put down some watered down Moonglow with a bush and covered the painting with a sheet of plastic wrap. I scrunched the plastic wrap a bit to create the spider-webby texture lines going through many areas of the painting. It was after this dried that I started looking for a picture and figuring out what to paint. When I saw what looked like crumbling skyscrapers, it bothered me. I use my art to escape and recharge, and I didn’t feel like painting a city falling apart. Once seen, I couldn’t unsee it, however, and I hoped that waiting would clear the image from my mind.

Then Renee was murdered this morning, and suddenly the apocalyptic vision I saw made sense and demanded to be painted. Finishing the piece after work took minutes. That lovely teal color of the water? I mixed that myself from Phthalo Blue (red shade) and Lemon Yellow. I’m enthralled with the result, so I documented it in my paint swatch book for future use.

The yellow orange sky is made up of Quinacridone Gold, Quinacridone Burnt Orange, and just a touch of Quinacridone Scarlet in places. “We the People” was written with a white gel pen. You cannot get such crisp, opaque marks with white watercolor. I thought about writing “Fuck ICE,” but that was too simplistic for what the painting was trying to communicate. I like my final choice.

I don’t like the surge of 2,000 ICE agents into my community and the Federal government bragging that it’s the biggest DHS operation ever, as if we deserve this over-policing. They don’t care what our community, elected officials, or police departments think about it. Force from without, not consented to from within. This is our punishment, gleefully doled out by Trump and Noem. We are recalcitrant children who deserve a good thrashing and the blood on our streets.

Minnesota is a small state of less than 6 million residents, with 3.8 million in the metro area encompassing Minneapolis, St. Paul, and surrounding communities. About 430,000 live in Minneapolis. For comparison, the population of Chicago—just the city itself—is 2.7 million. The Chicago metro area is over 9 million. In other words, larger than our entire state.

The thousands of armed men who are actively roaming the Twin Cities demanding to know if people they encounter with brown or black skin are U.S. citizens vastly exceed the size of the Minneapolis and St. Paul police forces combined. We have literally been invaded, and now one of us has been shot down in the streets by our oppressor. It’s still not enough for them, and they’re sending 1,000 more agents.

If you see anger in this picture I’ve created or in my words, should you be surprised? Or are you more surprised that our protestors have remained peaceful before this army. (Please, let all protestors stay peaceful.) So who is the domestic terrorist here? I know who is dead, and it’s not a Federal agent.

The painting I created looks better in person than on screen. Something with this kind of complexity always will, because the scanner flattens out the texture and interplay of paper and paint. Still, I’m pleased with this, and it feels powerful to me. I don’t know if it will hit others that way or not. The power may lie simply in what I experienced while painting it, and in the profound grief and outrage unleashed in my city and in my soul.

Of course, I’ve done this painting largely with a color that could fade—the downside of thinking you’re just playing and don’t care when you sit down with a brush. My best work often comes when I don’t care. And then I did care.

Then again, I don’t really want this hanging on the wall in my home. I aim for a tranquil environment, and this painting is not that. But this painting serves its purpose, even though I had no idea just how dark our reality would become when I saw that hellscape after first putting paint to paper.

My memory of January 7, 2026 will not fade, even if this painting does. My anger, my sadness, my fear. They are indelible marks to be carried, and they fuel my resolve that this is not what our country is meant to be. I will not be terrorized into silence by Federal agents who believe they have license to kill with impunity, and who have taken down people in stores where I shop.

I am afraid to go out now, but I think of those who are facing much worse. At a local Target store, ICE went up to two employees of Latino descent and demanded to know if they are U.S. citizens (they are). When the employees walked away rather than answering, they were tackled to the ground and hauled off to a detention center. ICE has also roughed up and detained Native Americans. You know…the people who lived here before Europeans arrived.

So my fear, though making it feel like an act of bravery to go shopping, is minor in comparison. It’s unlikely someone will walk up to me and demand I prove I’m a citizen. But should anyone in my community have to live like this? I’ve decided to have my cell phone ready to record if I see any ICE agents. I will not interfere, but I want to gather evidence in case they break any laws. Indeed, I have never been so keenly interested in what my Constitutional rights even are if approached by law enforcement, and I am actively bookmarking and memorizing the information. They are starting to go door to door, so I have practiced what I should say and do if they come to mine.

They may break in, rough me up, or kill me anyway. I am reading so many accounts of their violence and violation of our Constitutional rights here. It’s widespread. Knowing our rights cannot protect us from ICE. They ignore the law and lie about encounters to do what they want. I am physically vulnerable, and it wouldn’t take more than a shove to severely injure or kill me. But this is what it is to live here now. You either bow to the terrorism being inflicted by Trump, Noem, and ICE, or you decide to live by our Constitution, which gives us the right to videotape law enforcement. Minnesotans are not easily cowed.

Even in the wake of the horrific murder of George Floyd, I believed most people in law enforcement were there to serve the community. That most were not bad people, and we need our police. I don’t feel that way now about ICE or Border Patrol. Anyone with honor or integrity could not do to U.S. citizens (or to any human being) what they are doing here in Minnesota.

If you work for them, I now see you as a vile anti-American sack of shit. What we are enduring is so extreme that guilt by association is appropriate. No wonder they hide their faces. Anyone with honor or nobility has surely resigned by now.

If you think what they are doing to us is ok, I don’t want to hear about it, and I will not debate this topic. I literally do not want to hear one word of criticism of my state, our politicians, or to hear even a hint that someone thinks this is justified. Go there, and you will never hear from me again.

I do not take cutting someone out of my life lightly. Things are truly that bad, however, and I won’t stand for it. We are under attack, and our rights as Americans are being trampled in the streets. There is no middle ground left. I am that angry, and that anger will never go away.

If we give in to this government-inflicted terror, we will lose our country and everything that made us free. I will not give in. I will not give in. I will not give in. Not even if I die for standing against this. I will accept nothing less than the freedom I’ve enjoyed my entire life. I will not stand for it to be stolen from future generations.

Lest this sound like an exaggeration, Trump posted on Truth Social today (January 13, 2026): “FEAR NOT, GREAT PEOPLE OF MINNESOTA, THE DAY OF RECKONING AND RETRIBUTION IS COMING!” I snorted when I heard that. What a lovely man. Such a noble statesman, threatening my community this way. I’ve now learned he’s cutting our Federal funding to punish us, recalcitrant children that we are.

If we and the other states they’ve invaded fall, know that your turn to experience armed Federal aggression will come too. Make no mistake: this is politically motivated retribution, as the President himself just acknowledged. “Breaking” a fraud story to the nation that was years-old news here and well-covered and investigated by our local media was simply their pretext to attack. Any government that would do this to its own citizens is utterly corrupt and hasn’t a shred of morals or human decency. Nothing can justify the physical force they are using in an attempt to intimidate and break us.

Maybe there is something symbolic about my painting including a pigment artists would call fugitive. Fugitive as in fleeting and impermanent. Like the life of a 37 year old mother of three murdered by ICE in Minneapolis.

Or maybe the fugitive is an ICE agent who will likely never face a fair and transparent examination of the evidence and possible trial. Trump, Noem, and Vance declared the agent an innocent victim and cut off cooperation between the State and the FBI. The state of Minnesota has been barred from accessing evidence. We’re investigating anyway, but the Federal government claims we don’t have the right to prosecute.

They also won’t give the case to the Civil Rights division of the DOJ to investigate whether there was a civil rights violation. Multiple people in our U.S. Attorney’s office have resigned over the demand that they investigate Good’s wife instead. One of the prosecutors who resigned was investigating the fraud in Minnesota. I’m glad he chose not to go on a witch hunt against a grieving widow, no matter how important that fraud investigation.

Law and order within, denied from without. Why is the Trump regime so afraid of the truth? Epstein files, anyone? Where are the rest of the files they haven’t released?

Jonathon Ross’ cell phone video has made it into the public domain. Interesting how the Trump regime claimed he was attacked by Good, run over, and hospitalized. Somehow, in spite of being “run over”, he continues to stand, hold his phone, draw his gun, and fire it with deadly precision. Those are impressive skills for someone who was run over. “Fucking bitch,” he says as Good dies. Recalcitrant children we are in Minnesota, in need of a good thrashing by our Federal government.

Count me in the club of the recalcitrant. I’m angry, and I do not apologize for that. I do not recognize the right of ICE to ignore our Constitutional rights or believe ICE to be above the law.

I see other artists starting to flood the public consciousness with portraits of Renee Good. Smiling, happy pictures of joy, and I’m thankful. This is what we want our country to be, and not the dark apocalypse I have painted.

Indeed, I don’t know what my own painting means. Is the orange in the sky a fire raging through our cities, or is it the light of dawn? Is the turquoise water ICE freezing our Constitutional rights, or is it meltwater from ICE eventually unlocking its hold on our land? Is “We the People” the final epitaph on the gravestone of a fallen democracy, or is it a bold assertion that things may be crumbling now, but we are still here?

I don’t know, because that is for all of us to decide. What I do know is that if we want our city streets to be safe for all of us—no matter our political views or differences—we need to loudly and peacefully stand up and assert that now. Show the nation that Minnesota does not stand alone, and tell your representatives that.

I didn’t want to see such a dark and apocalyptic painting. I resisted that view of my work, but it exploded into reality with bullets flying from the gun of a Federal agent murdering a woman on the streets of Minneapolis. My streets.

For all of that, I have not given up on the idea that the orange in the sky is the light of the sun, and that the waters will cleanse us of the putrid stench of these times. For all of that, I believe in the strength of We the People to insist on light and healing. We can choose the path of good, and we can diminish the power of those who think good things are only for the chosen few. We have overcome dark days many times in our history. May we do it again.

Rest in peace, Renee Good.