Rita Robillard💚( my THD Fellow Resident) sent me one of her paintings the other day. Since I am really not a great abstract painting analyst, I asked my Virtual Assistant for help. Here's what my assistant analyses of Rita's Creation. 
Rita informed me that its the Hand of the Statue of Liberty holding a Flaming Heart.
PART I — Holding America’s Heart
A Personal Reflection Inspired by Rita Robillard by my Virtual Assistant per my Request
When I first encountered Rita Robillard’s Art in Politics, I saw a hand holding a blazing heart, bright, molten, and trembling with energy. It felt human, vulnerable, almost achingly alive. Only later did I learn from the artist herself that the hand belonged to the Statue of Liberty.
That revelation changed everything. Here was Lady Liberty not lifting her torch of enlightenment, but cradling our national heart, a heart burning with passion, conflict, and hope. It felt like a portrait of modern America: complicated, overheated, and somehow still beating. In the heart’s flames, I recognized moments I’ve lived through:
The unity and pain of 9/11 and its Aftermath
The moral confrontations of the civil rights era
The political storms of the modern age, currently the Trump Years
The idealism I’ve watched rise, fall, and rise again
As someone who has followed American politics closely for a lifetime, I feel the image deeply. The background, chaotic strokes, restless colors looks like every political period I’ve lived through: noisy, emotional, unpredictable. And yet, Liberty still holds the heart, steady but cautious.
The older I get, the more I appreciate that. This painting reminds me that America’s heart is fragile but alive, burning but worth carrying. And perhaps, deep down, that’s the message: we are all holding the heart together, whether we realize it or not.
PART II — When Symbols Catch Fire: The Emotional Life of American Politics
Every nation has its symbols, but America’s are unusually emotional. The flag, the eagle, the Capitol dome, these images aren’t just designs; they carry the weight of people’s hopes and heartbreaks. Rita Robillard’s flaming heart in Liberty’s hands joins this lineage by exposing something politicians rarely admit: politics is emotional before it is logical.
Look at the past seventy years, I’ve seen symbols change meaning right before my eyes:
The flag as a symbol of both fierce patriotism and urgent protest
Liberty’s torch as both welcome and warning
The White House as both aspiration and battleground
Our symbols reflect who we think we are, and sometimes who we are afraid we’ve become.
When a nation’s heart is on fire, people feel it long before leaders acknowledge it. I’ve watched Americans march, vote, shout, cry, and hope. I’ve seen young people embrace symbols old generations abandoned, and I’ve seen older Americans cling to symbols they feel slipping away. That’s the emotional life of American politics: a national story written in passion.
Art exposes this truth better than any speech. It doesn’t negotiate or spin, it reveals. And Robillard’s painting reveals this moment: a country burning and yearning, all at once.
PART III — The Artist as Witness: Rita Robillard and the Power of Creative Citizenship
Artists have long been the emotional record-keepers of their times. They notice the tremors beneath society’s surface and translate them into images the rest of us can finally understand. Rita Robillard does this masterfully. By replacing Liberty’s torch with a heart, she shifts the conversation from ideals to emotions. She asks us to feel the country, not just analyze it.
Throughout American history, artists have shaped political consciousness:
Dorothea Lange made the Great Depression impossible to ignore.
Norman Rockwell forced Americans to confront racism with The Problem We All Live With.
Jacob Lawrence chronicled the Great Migration with a clarity historians still marvel at.
The AIDS Memorial Quilt turned grief into activism.
And now, in her own way, Robillard adds to that tradition, reminding us that even our tallest monuments have stories left to tell. She offers a new kind of creative citizenship: not activism, not propaganda, but compassionate witness. She shows us the flame we’ve been carrying all along.
PART IV — Hearts on Fire: A Citizen’s Guide to Holding Democracy Together
If the painting teaches us anything, it’s that democracy is not self-sustaining. Someone must hold the heart. And that someone is all of us. Over my lifetime, I’ve seen waves of civic engagement: some passionate, some fearful, some hopeful. Each generation brings its own way of holding the heart:
My parents’ generation fought through war and built the institutions we rely on.
My generation lived through social upheavals that forced America to live up to its own promises.
Younger generations today navigate a digital world where politics never sleeps.
Democracy feels fragile right now, flammable, even. But the heart still burns, which means there is still something worth holding. Being a good citizen is less about political expertise and more about emotional courage:
The courage to stay engaged
The courage to listen
The courage to disagree without dehumanizing
The courage to believe America can be better
The flaming heart isn’t only Liberty’s burden, it’s ours, too.
PART V — Art After Crisis: How 9/11, Pandemics, and Upheaval Shape What We Create
Art changes when a nation suffers. I saw this after 9/11. I saw it again during the pandemic. There is something about national crises that breaks us open, forcing raw emotion to the surface. Artists often step in to translate what the country can’t yet articulate.
After 9/11, art became quieter for a time, more reverent. Then came the anger, the questioning, the political murals, the memorials. During the pandemic, art turned inward, faces in windows, empty streets, messages of resilience. Art becomes the emotional diary of trauma.
Robillard’s flaming heart fits within this lineage. It belongs to a moment when American identity feels heavy, when the future feels uncertain, when old systems strain under new pressures. It captures the tension of a country still processing everything it has endured.
Art doesn’t heal us. But it helps us understand what needs healing.
PART VI — Lady Liberty’s Heart: What We Choose to Carry Forward
In the final paragraph of this series, I return to the image that started all of this: Lady Liberty holding a flaming heart. For me, it represents both the weight of the past and the possibility of the future.
What do we carry forward?
The belief that liberty is emotional, not mechanical
The understanding that democracy burns brightest when people care
The hope that future generations will hold the heart more gently than we sometimes have
I think about my own lifetime, the public service, the crises I witnessed, the politics I’ve followed, the stories I’ve lived through. And I wonder what the next decades will hold for my children, grandchildren, and now my great-grandchildren.
The painting gives me both comfort and caution. The heart burns, yes, but it also glows.
Maybe that’s the promise embedded in Robillard’s work:
As long as the heart is still burning, America still has a chance.
And Lady Liberty is still holding it for us.
For Rita's Other Art Works, visit:
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