Class Consciousness 1-4/4

Series of linoleum relief cut prints on rice paper

The composition consists of 'the people's fist,' holding a sickle, clashing with a fasces. A geometric shape represents the violent contact. The sickle is illustrated cutting through one of the straps binding the rods of the fasces.

The people's fist is used in its most face value meaning: A strong, striking, geometric, solid black, heavy fist, representing solidarity among peoples. The sickle represents the working class, as it always has. This is not to be conflated with the Stalinist 'sickle and hammer;' the hammer is absent and the sickle has been used as a symbol of class solidarity for centuries. The fasces represents fascism. The fasces is durable and resistant to pugilist attack by design; it's a series of rods bound around a central axe. If a pugilist should wield a sharpened tool however, they may prove more effective against such a threat. This work aims to illustrate that. Should the people gain class consciousness, they may wield the working class, and dismantle fascism.

Times appear bleak, especially in the time I have made this work. The threat of fascism bleeds into Americans' every facet of life. It becomes all-consuming, crushing and defeating, should the solution to such a situation elude you. This work aims to remind the viewer not to lose hope. Only the battle is lost. There is still a path to victory and a better way of life, even though the solution may seem obfuscated or simply out of reach now.

This ultimately was an assignment, but I felt free enough creating this work that it may have been created, assigned or not.