Create Something True

May 4, 2026

 

A woman stands in front of an American flag, holding a broom in one hand and a mop in the other. The photograph is called American Gothic, taken by Gordon Parks in 1942. He had come to Washington, DC on a fellowship to photograph American life for the Farm Security Administration. Our nation’s capital showed him what it thought of people of color like him instead. He was turned away from stores, refused service at restaurants, and kicked out of a theater. When he returned to the FSA building, shaken, his supervisor suggested he start his project with someone right there.

 

Parks found Ella Watson, the woman who cleaned the offices every night. Her father had been lynched. Her husband had been shot to death. Her daughter died young. She was raising her grandchildren alone. No one in that building full of photographers had thought to ask her to sit for a portrait before. Parks posed her in front of the flag with the tools of her labor. He created an image that insisted she belonged in the picture of America she had been hired to clean around. What Parks made that day was not just a portrait. It was a refusal to let Ella Watson remain invisible.  

 

To create is to make a moral claim: this exists, this matters, look. It is a way of putting something into the world that most people have not yet seen. A photograph did not end segregation, but it made one woman impossible to dismiss. Art does this. It takes what has been reduced to a category or a statistic and insists it is a person. That is how human rights are honored — not just through protest and policy, but in the moments when someone is finally seen. 

 

This is why the Wassmuth Center is filled with art. Walk through the front door of the Philip E. Batt Education Building, and you stand under Conscious Flight, Filip Vogelpohl’s mobile of five hundred hand-blown glass wings suspended in the atrium light. This piece is rooted in Vogelpohl’s family’s experience of persecution and survival. The wings turn slowly, each catching the light. Move further in, and you’ll find art on every wall. These pieces are not decoration. They are invitations — to stop, to look, to let a work of art change the way you see, so that you walk back out into the world ready to make something of your own.  

 

For twenty-five years, the Wassmuth Center has extended that invitation to Idaho’s youngest artists. The Human Rights Arts Awards is our longest-running statewide education program. This year, we invited kindergarten through twelfth grade students to engage with Article 2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: the right to be free from discrimination regardless of race, gender, language, religion, political opinion, national origin, or any other status. What does equality mean in your community? How do we challenge discrimination when we see it? What does inclusion look like in action? 

 

They answered. A fourth grader sat down at a kitchen table and drew what fairness looks like. A high schooler wrote an essay about his friend who was told he didn’t belong in Idaho. A sixth grader composed a poem. A first grader picked up a paintbrush. Not because someone told them the world was waiting. Because something inside them needed a form. Through paintings and poetry, sculpture and story, these students illuminated truths that are sometimes joyful and sometimes painful — and insisted the rest of us look. 

 

Come see these pieces for yourself. If you are in the Treasure Valley, please join us this Thursday, May 7, at JUMP to view the students’ work, hear their words, and celebrate the power of art alongside local nonprofits committed to the same work. For those outside the area, look for the students’ work to be showcased on our website and in upcoming social media posts. 

 

And wherever you are, the invitation is the same one Parks answered in 1942, the same one these students answered this spring. What does the world need to see, and what will you make to show it? A photograph. A poem. A song. Whatever form fits your hand, pick it up. The world does not have a shortage of content. It has a shortage of people willing to create something true. 

 

This week, during Idaho Gives, we hope you will add your voice to what we’re building — so that invitation stays open for every person with something to say.