I drew these portraits over a year ago. I have been debating what to do with them since. The thing I hate the most about digital things is how intangible they are: until they’ve been brought to the physical world, the real world, they might as well not exist.

These portraits are all people I admire (I revere a few of them), people I aspire to
emulate in my own life. I’m not a believer in the “great men of history” theory, to do so is to fail to understand the dialectic; history is determined by systems and movements, and the constant interactions and reactions they have to each other and the world around them. And yet, there are great men; people who can capture a moment in time, harness the tides around them, and change the world for countless others. It isn’t always for the best, and in this country it can often feel like it is for the worst. These portraits are nine men who were able to lead movements that changed the world for the better, even if only for brief moments.

I feel uneasy about commodifying the legacies of these great revolutionaries;
Fidel Castro cannot be reduced to a baseball card (his legacy cannot even be
contained within the many books about the Cuban revolution that occupy entire
shelves of my bookcase), Che Guevara is more than a face on a t-shirt. It is
impossible to put into words or images what Dr. King meant to this world, or how devastating his murder was to the possibilities for our country.

Yet, as I write this, the ongoing genocide of Gaza enters its third year, enabled and armed by our government, as it has been since long before October of 2023. Like many of you, I have felt hopeless on more than one occasion to do anything
to put an end to this atrocity. I must always remind myself that hopelessness
is not an option, life is too short to feel hopeless. Greater odds have been
triumphed over throughout history. As a young boy, my father instilled in me
one of his great beliefs—that evil always fails, that the very wrongness of its
nature eventually corrupts it like a cancer and brings about its demise.
Perhaps that is a simple and naïve belief, and you can point to numerous
instances that seem to disprove it. Yet I chose to believe in it, and that belief can make it real. Fidel was widely dismissed when he declared that he would be absolved by history, the Bautista regime seemed insurmountable, yet a few short years later Cuba was free for the first time in its history, and Fidel’s perceived naivety was proven to be prophetic, a dream brought into reality by the collective belief of the Cuban people, and their willingness to sacrifice as necessary for it to come to fruition.

The people of the world have watched as the innocents of Gaza were (and are) slaughtered by a monstrous nation, and while the governments of the west have done nothing but support this crime, the people of the world oppose it unequivocally. Within our lifetimes, Israel will be no more. It is up to us to ensure that happens sooner rather than later. The mere existence of the Palestinian people is an existential threat to Israel, the occupier needs the occupied to disappear if its racist dream of an ethno-state is to realized. In Gaza, survival—life in and of itself—is an act of resistance. I wish I had the courage of the people
there, or those from around the world who have risked their lives to attempt to
bring aid to the people of Gaza, but I do not.

As a creative person, I would like to believe in the romantic idea that art has
the power to change the world. History tells us that it does not. As an American, I believe that money has the power to change people’s lives. As a Marxist, I believe that collective action is the only way to create true change. And so, I have created these nine cards. Personally, I consider the portraits to be some of my best work to date. In the past, I have tried to make my work affordable, I want the people who like it to be able to buy it without worrying about affording more important things. I am selling exactly one copy of each of these designs, at the price of $50 per card. All the proceeds will be donated to Gazafunds. If this is successful, it will be $500 donated, and I will create another nine cards, unique from this initial run.  

Thank you for your support.

-C