"Sometimes I Am Married" by Annie Bissett

Image posted with the permission of the artist. Annie Bissett wrote about her personal story that brought about this print on her blog here. Click here to go to her website to check out (and maybe purchase) some of her wonderful wood block prints.

"I became a historian, and went into the past, for the purpose of trying to understand and do something about what is going on in the present." -Howard Zinn

It is a map that charts out the state of gay marriage in the United States with the date it is made stamped at the top. However, the marriages, or rather the marriage of the print maker has been personalized. I am married. I am not married. I might be married. A single word: I, completely personalizes the image. While information about the laws are displayed in the form of a simple and neutral graphic, the personal impact these law have on real-life people (and in this case person) are displayed in the atmospheric planes of blue ink. Those and other subtle details are evidence of the artist's hand. The I who cared enough to make note of this significant point in time and state of dis-unity.