Blog / After Us

Fiddling during the First 100,000

June 2, 2020 - By Ward Schumaker

My wife said it took only one week for hydroxychloroquine to turn me into an old man. I'd been diagnosed with lupus, and it's the drug of choice used to combat that disease. But for many people it's difficult to tolerate, curiously causing problems that mirror the disorder.

On the medication, my fatigue became so great I sometimes slept fifteen to twenty hours per day; I was no longer able to walk to the corner and back, and climbing stairs became next to impossible. I worried about my eyesight (I've had two corneal transplants), because hydroxychloroquine can attack the retina and lead to blindness, unless carefully monitored. Yet no matter how much I complained, my doctor urged me to continue with the drug, because it was my only protection from lupus. Finally,...

Kids-In-Cages

May 20, 2020 - By Ward Schumaker

Over the last three years, many of the news items I've recorded in paint have seemed funny, surreal, or even unbelievable—but some were disturbingly sad: for example, Kids-in-Cages. Because of resolute news people and a few inquiring members of Congress, it was exposed that our government was imprisoning hundreds, even thousands, of families at the border. Kids were separated from their parents and housed in metal cages, living under rules like: Do not touch another child even if that child is your little brother or sister. How do you tell a three-year-old such a thing? (Taking into consideration that the workers and the children often did not even share a common language.) Because of inadequate housekeeping and care, many became sick, some died, and...

Foxes in the Time of Coronavirus

May 14, 2020 - By W. D. Ehrhart

(Photo by Anne Ehrhart)

Never saw the like of it before:
four sets of railroad tracks on one side,
four lanes of traffic on another,
parking lots on either side, barely
space for bushes and a patch of grass,
an early April day, sun shining—
and there, beside the fir tree, a fox.
There, another.  Smaller.  And another!
Three, four, five, six!  Incredible.
A vixen and her six small kits,
the mother keeping watch, aware of us,
fifteen feet away, my wife and I,
but not alarmed so long as we stood still,
her babies tussling, tumbling, racing,
pouncing, prancing, chasing one another,
having fun, though...

Trump Papers

May 12, 2020 - By Ward Schumaker

For years I earned my living as an illustrator, my work appeared in print with a story attached, words; so when I stopped illustrating and returned to fine art, it was natural for me to include words in that as well. But nothing political.

Broken Lines

May 8, 2020 - By Sharif S. Elmusa

(Photo: “Caged,”  by Achraf Baznani, used by courtesy of the artist)

Diary with Broken Lines to Wile Away Viral Time

Monday 6 April

Is Sharif Elmusa afraid of Covid-19?
Yes, Sharif Elmusa is afraid of Covid-19
(apologies to Charles Simic for the paraphrase,
hope he’s in good form).

Life and death are not the glass
half full or half empty.
Death is a broken glass.
I am afraid to be broken,
...