I painted the 100 Badass Women series during a time when many of us felt isolated and scared. I didn’t realize when starting that project how much I needed community, and I was so surprised by everyone who showed up for it. Though we were separated from one another due to Covid, I felt like you were right there beside me, every single day. You suggested people for me to paint, shared your personal stories and thoughts, and taught me so much. The community I found through that work profoundly changed me, and it changed the way I wanted to work moving forward. Since that time, I’ve had the opportunity to work with community members on several large-scale projects, and each time I’ve been floored by what we were able to make together and how those experiences bonded us.

Transformed, Community Created Mixed-Media Installation, 2022

UnBound, community mural on 14th St. West, 2023

The Jewel, Community Painted Crosswalk, Huntington, WV

We are living through another difficult moment now. This time, some of us are self-isolating in response to very valid fear, but regardless of the reason, isolation will keep us from moving forward. It will further fracture our community bonds, and it will suspend us in a state of fear. Making something together may seem futile or small, but I’ve experienced it enough now to know that is not true. Making art together can be a transformative experience, and I know that it matters. The 100 Badass Women project taught me that community doesn’t have to just be a side effect of making art, it can be the entire reason for making it in the first place.

With this in mind, and because I’ve seen what y’all can do and I want to challenge us to do something even cooler together, I’m starting a project called Solidarity: a year-long, 120-foot community-created mural featuring 12 larger than life portraits of key figures of the West Virginia Mine Wars. This time, I won’t be painting the portraits; you will! And I won’t be the only one contributing to the learning about the WV Mine Wars. I’ll be working with the good folks at the WV Mine Wars Museum for support (and I’ll be headed there for some field trips so kids near Matewan will be able to contribute to the mural, too!). I invite anyone who wants to share research, writing, family history, or photos to follow along, comment, and reach out to me to see how we can collaborate and share stories. I want this mural to be a truly collaborative and educational record of our past and present, as well as a physical manifestation of our hopes for a more just future for West Virginia.

Before I paint a portrait, I create a digital reference image, and I try to get it as close as possible to what I want the final work to look like. For Solidarity, I’ll be creating the reference images, and breaking them up in a way that they can be painted by others. Believe me when I say that you DO NOT have to be an artist to contribute beautifully to this. In fact, in my experience these kinds of paintings look so much cooler when they are done by people of all ages and skill levels. There will also be plenty of sections that have a more abstract flair-the goal is to have at least 1,000 people contribute to the completion of this mural in 2026. We will need people to paint sections, people to cut sections, and eventually people to piece sections back together to form what will essentially be a 120-foot long community quilt. (We will be using mural fabric that is painted off-site and then adhered to the wall)

Reference image for Mother Jones, the first of 12 portraits of key figures in the West Virginia Mine Wars

This mural will be installed inside the West Edge Factory, and there will be opportunities to contribute to a different section of the mural each month during our First Saturday Market, on the first Saturday of each month. The first one will take place on Saturday, March 7 from 11-4, and we’ll be kicking off the project with a portrait of the most Badass Woman of all, Mother Jones!

I started writing letters to Mother Jones in 2024 after painting her. Some of them were like diary entries, and some of them turned out more like poetry. Through that writing I have felt much more rooted as a West Virginian, and more connected to my own family history of coal mining. I’ll be sharing more about her in the coming weeks, but for now, here’s part of the first letter I wrote to her, in August of 2024.

Dear Mother Jones,

All that’s left of you is bones, I imagine.

It’s been ninety-four years since any blood coursed through those veins.

There you lay, up in Mount Olive.

If you’re layin’, that is.

That is, if you haven’t rolled over

and over

and over in that grave.

Did you ever get to rest?

My Mawmaw Ina from Paint Creek ran a boarding house for miners, and a tiny little shack with after-school snacks and records in the jukebox. She saw loss like you, Mother Jones, the kind most people can’t even imagine. I think I always got the churched-up version of the truth.

I want to hear about the flood and the blood, the real holler stories and the Company Store.

Did you ever have to trade anything sacred for a bag of flour?

I’m not sure anybody ever really saw my Mawmaw Ina. She was sharp-tongued, like you. I can picture her mouth moving to your words:

If you are too cowardly to fight, I will fight.

If you are too cowardly to fight, I WILL FIGHT.

Join me on Saturday, March 7 at the West Edge Factory from 11-4 to paint Mother Jones and kick off what I know is going to be the coolest mural ever.

In Solidarity,

Sassa