Artwork / 2019 / Heather and Allyson

Heather and Allyson helped organize the teachers’ work stoppage in West Virginia in 2018—you can read more about my encounter with them in this blog post and see the making of their portrait in this one. Their stories are part of The Future We Need, a book about collective bargaining and how it can be used by more than just labor unions.

I have painted a few of teachers over the years: my father-in-law, my friend Allie for a series of portraits of first and second generation Americans, and, more recently, the woman who is a kind of childfree mommy to me, Hannah.