Amanda Gorman stencil portrait art with The Hill We Climb poem

I was really moved by Amanda Gorman's reading of her poem "The Hill We Climb" at Joe Biden's inauguration. Her words and her delivery were uplifting and passionately optimistic, even while acknowledging a lot of the darkness in our country's past -- some of it VERY recent. The National Youth Poet Laureate is only 22 years old, but there was nothing naive in her recounting of our history or the challenges currently facing the United States and its people. There was also profound maturity and wisdom in her advice for how best to climb this hill we face, which includes (but is not limited to) merging "mercy with might, and might with right" so that love will become our legacy. Just like a lot of folks, this past year has been wearisome for me, especially in regards to feeling positive about where our country is and where it's going. Ms. Gorman's poem inspired me to want to be a part of the climb and not become the hill itself by giving into the stagnant inertia of weariness and/or hopelessness. On another note, the poem itself was MARVELOUS! The alliterations, the brilliant rhymes that would jump out from behind the bushes at times, Ms. Gorman's hand gestures and cadence -- it was simply thrilling. She breathed life and energy into so many familiar words and made them seem new again. I can think of no greater compliment to give a poet. My ideas for what kind of work to create as an expression of gratitude and admiration for Ms. Gorman and her inspiring words evolved numerous times over the past week and a half. Eventually, I settled on doing a piece that included the full poem over a portrait of @amandagorman4635 delivering it. After spending a few hours sketching out a drawing, the process I used to write out the poem motivated me to attempt a multi-color stencil similar to a screen print instead. I came up with an eight-color design and printed out each color on regular white printer paper, then hand cut each stencil with an X-Acto knife. It was VERY labor intensive, and took FOREVER, but I really love the results! In the background is a collection of images that I quickly came up with as a representation of the American identity. I'm sure my choices will draw criticism, but I want to emphasize that I didn't want to overthink the selections. They are just some of the ingredients in our infamous American melting pot -- for better or worse. The entire process, not counting the hours I spent working on the original drawing concept that I would eventually abandon, clocked in at right around nine hours. This is a 35-minute video of the process. I've also uploaded a version that is under six minutes and includes the audio from Amanda's Gorman's reading of "The Hill We Climb" from President Joe Biden's inauguration. LINK: /watch/IlE35WrHP7AH3 I think I will also do a long video of me cutting out one of the color stencils for those curious to see that process in a format closer to real time. Original art pieces (including this one!) are available in my Etsy Shop https://www.etsy.com/shop/artbybrio I spent a lot of time experimenting with different kinds of makeup to use, and I eventually decided to go with lip and paint palettes from Anastasia Beverly Hills, NYX and Wet n Wild. Here is a list of the products used with links to purchase: Wet n Wild Fantasy Makers Paint Palette https://amzn.to/3agIj9v NYX SFX Face and Body Paint Palette https://www.nyxcosmetics.com/new/sfx-face-and-body-paint-palette/NYX_906.html Anastasia Beverly Hills Lip Palette [No longer available] The dimensions of the work are six inches by seven inches. If you would like to purchase a copy of "The Hill We Climb" by Amanda Gorman, amazon has listing for a hardcover edition to be released on March 16, and a digital edition to be released on March 30. Here are links for those: "The Hill We Climb" hardcover book https://amzn.to/3aiuLKL "The Hill We Climb" Kindle digital edition https://amzn.to/3t953Rv Music in the video: "Silver Lakes" by Wes hutchinson "Puppy Love" by Bad Snacks "Traz" by Text Me Records / Grandbankss "Bass Vibes Rollin At 5" by Kevin MacLeod "The Big Score" by MK2 "Jazz Mango" by Joey Pecoraro "The Emperor's Army" by Jeremy Blake "Glacier" by Chris Haugen If you'd like to see photos of the final result, be sure to follow me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/brio__art/ and/or Twitter https://twitter.com/brio__art * Please note: The links to the makeup products and books above are affiliate links. If you click one or more of them and make a purchase, I get a small percentage.

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