Artist's Statement Outline

In my piece of artwork, I portray a warped scene from the Wizard of Oz, in which the tin man, or Dick Cheney, is pulling the scarecrow, or George Bush, down one of 2 roads. The road that they are taking leads to money, with storm clouds and lightning behind it. This signifies greed, and problems. The other road leads to a rainbow, sunshine, and clear skies. This signifies happiness and prosperity. The key point that my artwork makes is that George Bush was too brainless to go down the right road, and that Dick Cheney was heartless enough to lead him down the wrong one.

The reason I show Cheney making the decision to go down the road with money on it is because of his conflict of interest during his vice-presidency. He has connections to a company called Halliburton Co., which is involved with energy and oil. Despite the implications of supporting this company, Dick Cheney went along with it anyways, for his own personal gain.

Bush is portrayed as clueless (like the scarecrow) because he has a reputation of being one of our more unintelligent presidents. He is known for encouraging measures that have become unpopular among the American public, such as the invasion of Iraq, and he is also famous for saying some really strange things, which have come to be known as "Bushisms." One example of a Bushim is "We need an energy bill that encourages consumption." His intelligence has been questioned over the course of his presidency, mainly for these reasons.

The idea for Cheney to be pulling Bush down the road came from the events that are believed to have happened during the presidency, in which it is said Cheney had major influence over most of George Bush's decisions. Almost always, it seems Bush had gone in favor of what Cheney wanted, and sometimes, what benefited him. He has mainly been responsible for influencing Bush's decisions in oil and foreign policy.

President Bush will undoubtedly go down in history as one of our least popular presidents, but the message I try to convey here is that Cheney was more or less our president, and while it's possible that things could still have gone a similar way, this peice of artwork begs the question: What could have happened, if George W. Bush "only had a brain?" With Barack Obama as our current president (by the time this becomes my actual artist's statement that fact should actually apply) we can't help but once again think back to The Wizard Of Oz, and wonder if HE truly has the heart, brain, and nerve to go down the path that Bush never had the capacity to.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/09/26/politics/main575356.shtml
http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/blbushdumbquotes.htm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2008/06/02/BL2008060201318_3.html?nav=rss_opinion/columns