2021

Indigenous people were almost eradicated from the San Francisco Bay Area during the 1850s by disease and outright murder. They numbered 200,000 to 300,000 in California in 1849 or so, but they numbered only 14,000 by 1850. We continue to benefit from the genocide, so I give monthly to an Indigenous charity as "rent." I painted an indigenous friend over and over because I did not want to depict indigenous people without their permission. In painting this person, I found that he is well aware of the information that I just learned about the genocide.