Author: tmichaelwilliams

Both the late Tom Petty and his family firmly stand against racism and discrimination of any kind. Tom Petty would never want a song of his used for a campaign of hate. He liked to bring people together. … Tom wrote this song for the underdog, for the common man and for EVERYONE. We want to make it clear that we believe everyone is free to vote as they like, think as they like, but the Petty family doesn’t stand for this [unauthorized use]. We believe in America and we believe in democracy. But Donald Trump is not representing the noble ideals of either. We would hate for fans that are marginalized by this administration to think we were complicit in this usage.

Adria, Annakim, Dana, and Jane Petty, in a statement after Tom Petty’s song I Won’t Back Down was used at Donald Trump’s campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma.  

Scott’s orioles (Icterus parisorum) at Ash Canyon. Shown here are a male Scott’s and his recently fledged offspring, still staying close and still calling to dad for food.

Etymology note, from the Cornell Lab: “Orioles … are grouped in the genus Icterus, derived from the Greek ikteros, meaning “jaundice.” In ancient Greece, the sighting of a small yellow bird was believed to provide a cure for jaundice. In the earliest days of North American ornithology, the discoverers* of bright yellow and orange birds were apparently still aware of the old lore.”

* As though the indigenous people of the desert southwest were waiting in trembling anticipation for some old white guys to show up and give these birds Latin names before they could see and know them for the first time. Sheesh. “Discoverers” indeed.

Portrait of Breonna Taylor by artist Adrian Brandon, in a portrait series called Stolen. The works are deliberately left incomplete:

“This series is dedicated to the many black people that were robbed of their lives at the hands of the police. In addition to using markers and pencil, I use time as a medium to define how long each portrait is colored in. 1 year of life = 1 minute of color. Tamir Rice was 12 when he was murdered, so I colored his portrait for 12 minutes. As a person of color, I know that my future can be stolen from me if I’m driving with a broken taillight, or playing my music too loud, or reaching for my phone at the wrong time. So for each of these portraits I played with the harsh relationship between time and death. I want the viewer to see how much empty space is left in these lives, stories that will never be told, space that can never be filled. This emptiness represents holes in their families and our community, who will be forever stuck with the question, “who were they becoming?” This series touches on grief and the unknown.”

You can see other works in the series at the link.