I’m currently doing some ink drawings for my first ever art festival! 🤩 It’s happening later this month. But the 4^th of July is a good time to share this portrait of Capt. Edith Standen, a member of the MFAA.

I feel she must have been quite the individual as most of the Monuments Women were. I admire her sense of justice and her willingness to stand up if someone transgressed it no matter who that someone was. For example, she was one of the MFAA officers who signed the Wiesbaden manifesto on Nov 7, 1945. The manifesto was an act of protest against orders by the U.S. government to send German owned art to the United States. It was called “the only act of protest by officers against their orders in the Second World War,” and it declared,

“We wish to state that, from our own knowledge, no historical grievance will rankle so long or be the cause of so much justified bitterness as the removal for any reason of a part of the heritage of any nation even if that heritage may be interpreted as a prize of war.”

She didn’t stop at just signing the manifesto though, she also distributed it to various offices after the art had gone. After a long three years the paintings were sent back.

And I think that this is a good reminder to Americans about what makes America great. It’s not our money, nor our weapons, it’s the amount of discourse we can have with the government and the government listens, even if it takes three years. Without a government that listens we have nothing.

Happy 4^th of July to all the fellow Americans out there! Be safe and be sane,