State of the Union by Madison Spitzer (Redlands, CA)

State of the Union Madison Spitzer (Redlands, CA) Textile, 5’ H x 9’ W Artwork: State of the Union is about the ever-increasing division in the so-called "United" States. The rift has become so large that there seems little hope of repair, so the question asked by this piece is not "How do we reunite?", which was the intention at its original conception years earlier. Rather, the impending question in this work is that of "What comes next?" Artist Statement: The American flag, torn into two, stitched together with the word “reunite”. This idea was a call to action and a prayer of hope. As time passed and events developed, the vision changed: a flag not in pieces that could be mended, but burning from within. The quilt block: Broken Dishes— one of America’s earliest recorded blocks, a symbol for something unmendable, and a sign used by quilters in the Underground Railroad. This is when I began reading “Honeybee Democracy”, and I began adding hexagons, letting the patriotic stars burn away, leaving something raw and organic behind. The destructive fire is not born out of hate, but observation. I, and the viewer, become helpless watching a destruction that seems to have become inevitable. The beehive born out of the fire, begs a question— When the structure of our current system burns away, will we be left with a purer form of democracy as even the bees have, or will we have become drones in service of the hive mind?