Trump's Wall

Apologises for being so late, but, finally, here's my piece. I very rarely ever make a political piece, and I really hope I don't offend anybody, but I found that as Trump's presidency continued in the USA I got more and more annoyed with him. Towards the end I felt real anger with his treatment of people, and his flexibility with regards to the truth. When I started to think about walls, all I could see was Trump's wall between the USA and Mexico. So here's my piece....

It's a combination of two images. For the background I used a piece of public artwork installed in Soho, New York, in October 2020. https://www.timeout.com/newyork/news/a-massive-mural-featuring-20-000-of-trumps-lies-has-been-installed-in-soho-102920 It contains 20,000 proven lies told by Trump during his time in power, coloured by topic. The foregound is from a photo of the metal fence installed in places between the USA and Mexico where someone manged to temporarily install some pink see-saws connecting the two sides. I've made the bars from a translucent fabric so that you can see through the wall to the lies beyond. The background and foreground actually have different perspectives, a nod towards the divided opinions about Trump, and also because I felt it made a slightly more interesting effect. Why did it take so long? Firstly I had forgotten the deadline was coming up, and only remembered a couple of days beforehand, just as I was leaving for the first visit to my mother for 9 months. While I was there I decided on the main design, but not on the method of making it. It was only when I was home again that I realised that there was no way I was going to be able to piece the background as I had hoped, and I would have to paint it. This took so much longer than I expected!! Everyday I would add another colour, then run out into the garden to take advantage of the good weather. When it came to adding the bars I found I had to use fusible bonding to keep them straight but as the fabric was so thin the glue oozed through the fabric causing me problems with the sewing - and I didn't dare iron it for too long as I know the chiffon would shrink and distort if it got too hot. Finally the outline of a person on the see-saw was added by hand. It's still not quite finished as I'm trying to decide whether to bind it as normal, or whether it would be better with a facing. I'm not sure whether I like the final image or not, but at least it allowed me to vent some of my feelings. Now, if we could only change Brexit.........