There is another tweet that has brought me into silence in the past few days. But not a hollow silence; a silence full of anger, an anger built on fear; a silence that is suffocating, and isolating, and makes me feel powerless. On January 4th, 2020, the 45th President, in reference to the assassination of Major General Qasem Soleimani said on Twitter, "Let this serve as a WARNING that if Iran strikes any Americans, or American assets, we have targeted 52 Iranian sites (representing the 52 American hostages taken by Iran many years ago), some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD. The USA wants no more threats!"

I want to make something abundantly clear. By both the Hauge and Geneva conventions, the destruction of cultural sites is a war crime. It is an atrocity. It shows no strength, and only a baseless lack of humanity. And as a lover of art, a student of history, and a human being, I absolutely cannot read that tweet and let my silence linger. This man must be stopped. These crimes, these threats, this warmongering, hate spewing demagoguery must be condemned. War will happen. I don't like it, and I can't change it. But there is a thread that connects this painting, and Layla Al-Attar, and Bill Clinton, and the tweet that was sent on January 4th by Donald Trump. These men do not care about freedom, or general welfare, or common defense, or humanity, or any of the things that the Founders of this country stood for. They care about their power, and the legitimazation of that power by destroying both the culture of the past and the creators of the future. This is not power, it is cowardice. This is not strength, it is weakness. This is not greatness, this is failure; failure of the American Experiment, failure of the Christian Experiment, and failure of the Human Experiment.

So if you love art, like I do, if you love humanity, like I do, if you have ever dared to say you follow some version of the Golden rule, then please help me fill this silence. Write letters to your Congressmen, write letters to your neighbors, talk to those who agree with you and those who do not. I told you this episode is not like any other and it has no happy ending. No hope punk twist. At least not today. Not as I write this on January 7th, 2020. As I write this today, we have work to do, in every and any way that we can, in every and any way that you can, in every and any way that I can. Whatever it is that you can and need to do to end this silence, I'm here by your side. We are not alone. Layla Al-Attar never finished this piece. We might not finish our peace either. But we'll paint. We'll paint because we can. We'll paint because we need to. We'll paint because we are human beings, and because love will win some day. And if our painting is left unfinished, so be it. All the better. Our peace will be truer than true, and greater than great.