“Jubilee” (a long-overdue portrait of Jaki Shelton Green and her daughter, Eva)
Pencil, Pastel, & Watercolor. 2026.
Jaki (North Carolina’s hardworking, apparently indefatigable Poet Laureate) is a friend of mine. Of course, to be friends with Jaki entails having to learn (even for spoiled me) that you have to SHARE Jaki; She’s widely and deservedly beloved by many.
She’s a very fine poet, of course, but beyond that?……she’s a fiercely dedicated educator and the furthest thing you could be from a head-in-the-clouds, snooty-boots, word-smithing egoist. She’s spent decades taking it to the people (particularly our state’s young people), so to speak…..and she continues to do so, every day of every week.
I’ve painted her several times over the years…..and, each time, I recall Yeats’s line “Say where man’s glory most begins and ends/and say my glory was that I had such friends”.
She’s one of the very few folks (including among my friends) whom I unreservedly admire. This will, of course, be a gift to Jaki and Eva.
The title is taken from this remarkably moving song (Which stopped me in my tracks the first time I heard it): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdRN4BVhlYQ…