We Were Never Sleeping

The story behind the painting

I painted this in the days before the first No Kings rally. Everything outside my window felt restless—streets filling, voices finding each other, the air beginning to hum. People called it “waking up,” but I remember thinking: some of us never slept.

We’ve always seen what was happening, always cared, always tried to hold the small good things in a world that can turn away too easily.

At first the eyes in the painting appeared by accident. As I built up the washes of color, faint shapes kept surfacing—watchers beneath the surface. I leaned into them, letting more emerge, until the whole piece felt alive with quiet witnesses.

They aren’t judging or shouting; they are simply open, refusing to look away.

This work became my quiet protest and my promise: to stay awake, to keep seeing, and to honor everyone who already has. The good people were never sleeping; we were only waiting for the world to notice that our eyes were open all along.