Defiance, Hope, Remembering: Artwork From United Way’s Gary Rubin
United Way of King County staff possess many talents beyond our prowess for ensuring that all residents in our area have enough to eat, a safe place to call home, access to resources, and a quality education.
Take, for example, Gary Rubin, United Way Senior Director of Philanthropic Engagement. Gary connects United Way to our local community. He tells our story and the stories of those we serve. And he creates partnerships between our organization and the area’s public, private, and philanthropic sectors.
He’s also an accomplished artist. Gary studied drawing and sculpture at the University of Oregon and initially experimented with large oil paintings. “The thing is, when you have three dogs and two cats, isolating yourself in a second bedroom doing oil painting doesn’t sit really well with the furry ones. So I was motivated and thinking about how I could be part of the animal collection here and still do what I wanted to do, and I thought that I could do small pencil work, small graphite work.”
Gary’s pencil and graphite work is currently on display in the exhibit “Art is Resistance” at the Holocaust Center for Humanity in Seattle through March 15. We recently visited the Holocaust Center for a chat with Gary about his work and for a word with the CEO, Illana Cone Kennedy, about the Center (both are pictured in the banner photo).
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“My grandmother was an immigrant; she, her mother, and her sister escaped a small Polish village when the Russians were rampaging and destroying Jewish Polish villages in the early 1900s. She’s one of many who were fortunate to survive, and if not for her, I wouldn’t be here. I thought about that and the work I do every day at United Way of King County; we work with those who are most vulnerable and marginalized.
“Here we are, 105 years after my grandmother came over, and are immigrants being treated any differently? The oppression, the violence, the hatred still exist. All of this was going through my mind, knowing that this art would be displayed at the Holocaust Center for Humanity, where stories of those who perished are memorialized. Stories of those who survived are told here. Survivors talk to people who come here.”
“When I saw that submissions were up on the site, I thought about what it would mean. Art is resistance. What does resistance mean?
What are the feelings and emotions that go into resistance? And of course, there are so many. Here, I’ve got ‘Defiance, Hope, and Remembering.’ These are the three emotions I captured for this exhibition.
“I want whatever that feeling or emotion is to be the center of the piece. I don’t capture an entire face and a portrait. I capture enough so that I feel the audience will look at it and will focus on what I hoped to capture with that emotion or feeling.”
“This all started in January of 2020. I made a commitment to do one drawing per weekend; that was my goal for that year. COVID hit about a month and a half later, and I found myself isolated. I also found myself by my TV tray, where I keep my pencils and my sketchbook. I was doing up to three drawings, and that’s how I coped in isolation. Since 2020, I’ve done about 2,400 of these small graphite works. I am proud and honored to have it exhibited here.”
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To check out Gary’s work on his Instagram page, click here.
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