An archival matted 38 x 18.5 inches triptych with three prints – Faith, Hope and Peace – combined with a letterpress text panel in a Limited Edition of 44 prints and 4 Artist Proofs. 

The story behind Better Angels

Better Angels is a personal response to what I consider a moral obligation and patriotic responsibility. I believe that America’s existing greatness currently faces an historically significant challenge, but I have a profound faith in the fundamental goodness of this country of ours, a united nation which, despite immense flaws, has never ceased being great. 

In Better Angels, I have combined three of my photographs with the remarkable last words of Abraham Lincoln’s first inaugural address at another time when this great country was bitterly divided. 

“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”   

- Abraham Lincoln, first inaugural address, 1861

I have been powerfully inspired by Toni Morrison’s observation: “This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.”  Put simply, I believe that we need to recognize and embrace our “better angels,” now.

 Better Angels is printed by me in an edition of 44, plus 6 Artist’s Proofs. Lincoln’s great words are beautifully typeset by hand by a renowned press shop in Portland, Maine, and Better Angels is sold fully matted and ready for framing.