Bananas for Sale

by Kelly Goldstein

“One issue. One moment. One newspaper. As Jan 6, 2021, unfolded in the news, Kelly Hartigan Goldstein looked on, baffled as every lesson she attempted to impart to her children was blatantly disregarded by the politician in our highest office. Using a single newspaper, retrieved early 1/7/2021, she found solace in an obsessive word find, combining recent studies of her favorite still-life fruit with the chaos of a fragile Democracy.”

Laguna Beach artist, Kelly Hartigan Goldstein, works in rumination and current events, meticulously creating newspaper collages. Merging individual experience with a larger conversation, she paints discourse with cuttings from a sole newspaper from a specific date. Primed to find meaning, she puzzles through the available language, reading the paper in an epic search of typography and tonal value. A written image emerges from found phrases, and the weight of the reported word, as she contemplates the relentless polarizing news cycle throughout her day.