Submitted on February 8, 2022 - 4:00pm
In his 1969 speech, The Artist’s Struggle for Integrity, James Baldwin began with two propositions: the first in which he said, “The poets, by which I mean all artists, are finally the only people who know the truth about us.” He noted in the second that in our present times, it would be awful for a civilization to cease to produce poets or to believe in their observations. To engage art as a poetic involves a willingness to chart unknown courses with grace and patience, trusting the guidance of our inner compass.
Barbara Earl Thomas (BA, Design, 1974; MFA, Painting, 1977) personifies this…