I belong to a creativity group that meets every Friday to make art. I’m not an artist, so I appreciate still being welcomed into this gathering of wonderful women. This summer one activity was to take a page from a magazine and turn it into something else. I used the program from the big No Nukes concert series at Madison Square Garden in September 1979.
In March 1979 an accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania caused a partial meltdown. The “No Nukes” movement had already existed then coalesced in response to this accident. I was still a college student at the time, being on the on-again-off-again plan, and hadn’t been interested in the issue. I was busy writing, having a series of dysfunctional romances, and crushing on Jackson Browne.
In May 1979 Musicians United for Safe Energy (MUSE), an organization Browne helped create, had a rally in Washington DC. I went to see Jackson. It was my first big rally for a cause, exciting to feel the energy and see all the different groups tabling for progressive issues. I gathered info from the War Resisters League’s booth, remembering my antiwar self from earlier that decade. All the musicians told us to go back to our communities and get active. When Jackson Browne said it, I listened and joined our local SEA Alliance chapter (which we eventually turned into a War Resisters League chapter and opened the Peace Center in donated space behind a bike shop and added Plowshares Press, a “movement” print shop).
Now…back to my art project. Inside the program was a simple white page with black print and gray line drawings. I ripped it out, threw down some watercolors from brush markers to liven it up, and added the photograph, the only picture of me in an antinuke t-shirt. (It says, “Who killed Karen Silkwood?”)
As I made the piece, it occurred to me how naïve my 25-year-old self was…still snarky but starry-eyed and determined. And the phrase came to mind: The things we believed were possible. We had believed we could end nuclear power. We thought we could bring about nuclear disarmament. I pasted that phrase onto my little colorful page with sadness for how hopeful we had been vs the reality of the intractable system we live under. And that was weeks ago while we still thought our country wasn’t going to elect a fascist.
I haven’t wrapped my head around that yet.
