Barbara Strelke’s faith in our political system is being tested. After Barack Obama’s election in November of 2008 she was optimistic about the nation’s future. Living in a small town in Mexico, she looked to an enlightened neighbor to the north. Now Strelke voices outrage and sadness when she compares the America of her youth to the realities left by an ugly election and the rhetoric of hate. For her, our national journey has become a nightmare.

Journey Home Times Four is one woman’s artistic response to places she has called home. Art helps her navigate the challenges of aging, the death of her first husband, and a troubling political landscape. Whether growing up in small-town Wisconsin, discovering New Mexico nearly fifty years ago, or finding new love in the Sonoran Desert, she documents landscape change wedded to personal change. She creates beauty and order in new locations as she turns from words to shape, line, and color. Hope revives through her poignant poems, photographs, and paintings.