I hope people don't mind a plug. I'm having an art show this coming September in Gallery Saratoga in Saratoga, California. It'll be from September 2 to October 5. I'll have a reception on Saturday, September 6, from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. If any of you are in the San Francisco Bay Area at this time, I'll be happy if you'd be able to see my art.

This year I did more ink drawings than paintings, and they'll be featured in my show. I do a weekly cartoon for a local California newspaper, the TriCity Voice, where I try to comment on what I see for a general audience.

I also put a more overtly political message in the cartoons that I've submitted for Z Magazine, a political magazine based in Boston. Each week I do cartoon of the Sunday readings for the Sunday bulletin of my church, St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Sunnyvale, California. If you like cartoons, you might enjoy my show...

I’ve always been interested in the civil rights movement and the general movement for social change. As I’ve read books on the people who’ve participated in the fight for equal rights, one name kept popping up who inspired many of these people to become active. Bayard Rustin is not as well known as Martin Luther King Jr. or Malcolm X, yet he played an important part in the middle of the twentieth century in organizing protests for civil rights and for anti war causes, and he helped bring Gandhi’s philosophy of nonviolence into the mainstream of American progressive thought.

His work on behalf of important progressive causes was informed by his Quaker faith, and his activism helped improve American society by tearing down segregation in the South and bringing to the forefront issues of economic justice and world peace.

When I used to think of George Washington, I usually thought of the guy whose picture was on the one dollar bill. Most everyone else I know thinks of Washington in the same way, which is sort of sad.

In the past few years, I’ve read more about George Washington and have grown to admire him. During his lifetime, he was revered by his countrymen for his courage in leading the Continental Army to victory against the most powerful military in the world, and he drew even greater praise for his willingness to give up power and respect the spirit of republican government of the early United States. He was a good man and a wise leader, and nothing shows Washington’s character more than his evolving views towards slavery. Though he started out having the same views on race as his fellow Southern plantation owners, Washington’s views evolved to the point where he was a strong voice against slavery and wished that some means for the country to rid itself of the institution.

On this 4th of July weekend, I'd like to actually post a speech that Frederick Douglass gave about Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1876. I think it's in keeping with our election year and in keeping with one of the roles of a true patriot: to help our nation live up to its highest ideals. It is about the faith of Douglass and Lincoln in America's capacity to change for the better. First an excerpt from the book Douglass and Lincoln: How a Revolutionary Black Leader and a Reluctant Liberator Struggled to End Slavery and Save the Union by Paul Kendrick and Stephen Kendrick:

"In the most incisive estimation of Lincoln that Douglass was ever to make, the speaker reminded his audience that at the time of the beginning of the war, abolitionists (including Douglass) had seen him as 'tardy, cold, dull, and indifferent,' but when Douglass measured him against the rest of the country at the time, Lincoln was 'swift, zealous, radical, and determined.' Douglass now fully understood what Lincoln had gone through, balancing public opinion and justice.

"In the end, Douglass' people had come to love this president, and for a simple reason: 'We came to the conclusion that the hour and the man of our redemption has somehow met in the person of Abraham Lincoln.'

I first discovered the artwork of Thomas Hart Benton from an article in Smithsonian magazine while I was in college in the 1980s.

I really didn’t know too much about the fine arts back then, and I knew even less about the great American artists from that time between the two great World Wars. I loved learning about new artists and great paintings, and Benton was a real revelation to me. He was one of the biggest influences on me as I was learning to find my own style and voice as an artist. I never get tired of looking at Benton’s paintings, and his attempts to capture the energy and rawness of the everyday American life left a deep impression on my own outlook on art.