12”x23” colored pencil and oil pastel on paper
At the birth of our nation, the bald eagle was chosen as our national bird for its strength and majesty. Our bird was officially declared an endangered species in 1967 and had nearly disappeared from most of the United States. It then became a symbol of the life-threatening effects of environmental pollution, wildlife persecution, and man's clash with nature. Yet, the bald eagle was removed from the endangered species list in 2007, in what is considered an amazingly short period of time for a comeback. This magnificent bird now flourishes again across the nation, because private and public landowners cooperated to detoxify and protect its habitat and food chain.
Like the bald eagle 50 years ago, the United States’ prestige as a respected world leader has nearly disappeared, and the prosperity of our country, its people, and our habitat is threatened more and more every day. Thus, the bald eagle sits as a friend, on Barack Obama’s shoulder, symbolizing the fast comeback we envision in his leadership -- detoxifying and protecting our habitat to bring prosperity back to the American people -- leadership in foreign affairs to help our country recover its respect as a strong and majestic world influence – with the American people cooperating with him to this end.
We are evolving toward a more global community, and the most poignant issues of our time are global, so I portrayed the United States as a green nation in the context of the planet Earth set amidst the stars and moon. The Earth is not shaped perfectly to symbolize its imbalanced state from pollution, global warming and the human addiction to exploiting Earth of natural resources while wars rage on its surface. Barack Obama stands in front at the microphone -- a great leader ready to face these extremely difficult challenges of our time.
The moon, a universal symbol for change, is echoed in Barack Obama’s image, who himself is a strong symbol for change!
Barack’s skin is the Sun balanced with a cooler shadow, symbolizing his humanity, and also his desire and ability to bring light into darkness, awareness into shadows, and hope for a brighter future.
Barack Obama is a star surrounded by stars in a mysterious Universe where everything is connected. One speck of light affects the whole. One human affects the whole. His glow has already brought us so much hope! It ignites us all into a cooperative and ever increasing positive energy, that moves us out of our current state of darkness, and into a more magnificent, balanced humanitarian world.
--Nance Broderzen 09/10/08