Label
2022, Whose America?
Elizabeth “Grandma” Layton depicts herself as a prisoner with her mouth taped shut, hands tied behind her back, and drawings torn up behind her. Items around her, such as a crossed-out billboard in the top left corner, a tumbling statue underneath it, crossed-out pins on her jumpsuit, and a quote about the first amendment in the bottom right corner, represent censorship. The jagged, expressive lines, suggest her reactions to current events, like the 1989 Tiananmen Square riots in China and the 1985 censorship of an I-70 billboard by artist Tilly Woodward that featured the hangings of Russian freedom fighters by Nazi soldiers. These details collectively represent Layton’s attitude towards ageism and sexism, the repressive nature of totalitarian regimes, and the hypocrisy of censorship in a supposedly democratic nation.
Text by Kaitlynn Ray, Washburn studentLabel
Label from 2014.Art for Social Change:
Kansas artist Elizabeth Layton described her print as follows:
“The old woman is bound and gagged and can no longer draw. Her principles have been X-ed out. I guarantee you she feels like a zilch. In the background, from top left, counterclockwise: Interstate 70 billboard art by Tillie Woodward, of a Nazi soldier hanging two Russian resistance fighters, which was plastered over June 5, 1985 [because of complaints of nearby residents]; the Goddess of Liberty falling broken in China’s Tianemen [sic] Square; a pile of the old woman’s drawings torn up and censored; quotation, ‘The first exception (to the First Amendment) will not be the last’—Ira Glasser; sheaf of CLASSIFIED papers beginning and ending with LIED.”
“Censored” not only comments on censorship but also on the fact that elderly are sometimes ignored in our society.