Author Talk With Rob Shetterly
Maine artist Rob Shetterly has a new book, “Portraits of Peacemakers: Americans Who Tell the Truth,” coming out this fall that showcases his paintings alongside a collection of essays. Join us on October 24 at 6:30 p.m. over Zoom.
The third volume in Robert Shetterly’s Americans Who Tell the Truth series features Shetterly’s loving, colorful portraits and short biographies of 50 peace activists, along with essays by a few of the individuals highlighted in the book: Chris Hedges, Kali Rubaii, Paul K. Chappell, Medea Benjamin, Alice Rothchild, and David Swanson.
In describing what animated his choice to assemble these portraits, Shetterly writes,
Each person portrayed in this book teaches us a particular lesson of peacemaking. We need them all. They all have vision, creativity, and the courage to resist warmaking. They are heroes, not for going to war, but for having refused to participate in the violence and in the culture of violence. Let them be your guides.
Portraits of Peacemakers is a gift to educators. At a time when the virus of cynicism threatens to infect young people everywhere, this warm and wise community of truthtellers offers an alternative to despair. Robert Shetterly’s collection of courageous activists belongs in every classroom, every school library. [Description from Rethinking Schools]
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Robert Shetterly is a visual artist, social activist, and writer. For the past twenty years, he has painted portraits of citizens who address issues of social, environmental, and economic fairness in the series Americans Who Tell the Truth, now the subject of the Kane Lewis feature-length documentary Truth Tellers, which is currently airing on American Public Television. Shetterly’s portrait project is also recorded in a multi-volume book series, including Portraits of Racial Justice and Portraits of Earth Justice, and Portraits of Peacemakers. Since 1990, Shetterly has been a producer of the Maine Masters Project and has served as President of the Union of Maine Visual Artists. Shetterly lives and works in Brooksville, Maine.
