I was honored to be asked to create a series of images for the Labor Notes publication, Keep Going: A Guide to Organizing When It’s Hard, by Ellen David Friedman, chair of the Labor Notes board and a facilitator of the United Caucuses of Rank and File Educators.

We began by brainstorming the kind of imagery that could illustrate the central themes of the book: that power is the ability to radically respect ourselves and our co-workers, because it is the one thing we can control, and the source of our defiance. Each chapter opens with an organizing story about connecting with co-workers, listening, and forming long-term relationships for the long haul. The subjects were activist union members across a wide variety sectors. We didn’t want just portraits of the worker featured in the stories, or a typical protest image of crowds and raised fists (I’ve done plenty of those!). We wanted to represent the inherent dignity that comes when we talk to each other.

I began with a quick ink sketch for feedback, then created a final image in ink and watercolor.

I like this construction site image because it is a worker taking back the time that the boss has stolen from them.

This one was called “Can We Even do That?” – getting up the courage to confront the boss, knowing your coworkers are there, they’ve got your back.

Here we wanted a sea of red, but not just at a picket line, but in democratic deliberation. And would the red shirts signify the union, or the desire to democratize the union?

This one was a picket line, but at its hardest, in the rain and cold, and holding steadfast.

This one was the most fun – how to demonstrate the organizing over zoom that the union of voice-over actors had to do?

This was one of the more difficult ones: back-of-the-house restaurant workers (mostly Latinx) talking with white front-of the-house workers, building trust and camaraderie among the distinct categories of workers – servers, dishwashers, cooks, drivers, catering, waiters, each with their own distinct issues and coming from different positions of privilege within the hierarchies created by the owners.

I had a great photo to work with of the Durham Association of Teachers meeting at a school gym, but I had to play with the perspective and bring the background forward so Carlos wouldn’t just be a spec at the end of the large hall.

This was the hardest one, since I have never been in an auto plant (not true, but I don’t think a middle school trip to the So Cal Van Nuys plant many decades ago counts now). The assembly line is perhaps the quintessential example of the workplace atomizing us as powerless individuals, so the challenge was to show workers asserting their rights to talk to each other in a worksite.

The other illustration challenge was to create a sense continuity across the book. A previous book by Labor Notes had used a bullseye graphic that represented the expanding circles of relationships from an individual’s point of view. In this one, we wanted something that spoke to the ebb and flow of organizing among many relationships – the idea that emerged is of a river: keep going, take a breath, exhale, the idea that the spaces we create can’t have coercion, but we do have direction. I have often thought of the trajectory of organizing with the image of rivers, movement of water, sometimes clumping, sometimes swirling, sometimes going fast, sometimes slowing to a pool, never a straight line. This image was used to introduce each chapter, linking the illustrations with the text to follow.