Lawyer's Painting Met With Calls for Removal

Conservatives are calling for the removal of a painting by a Berkeley lawyer that hangs in the California State Department of Justice's cafeteria and depicts the United States getting flushed down the toilet.

Local artist Stephen Pearcy's painting, which below the flushed United States reads "T'anks to Mr. Bush," is hanging as part of the Sacramento department's cafeteria art show sponsored by California Lawyers for the Arts.

State Republican Party officials and conservative bloggers are demanding that California Attorney General Bill Lockyer remove the piece, which hangs behind a pair of ceramic cowboy boots.

An online petition being advertised by the online Web log Conservative Schooler calls the painting "anti-American" and says that it is within Lockyer's rights to remove it. The petition had more than 50 signatures last week.

"It is offensive to most of the residents of California and America. Material that is offensive to most people does not belong in a government office," the petition states. "It is a desecration of the symbol that represents this country."

Pearcy said he painted the piece in 20 minutes on July 4, 2003 because of frustration he felt regarding the state of the country.

"I put it out on the front lawn, after seeing American flags everywhere in this fanatical display of patriotism," Pearcy said. "Things that made me feel like the country was going down the toilet. It's a pretty straightforward message."

Pearcy encountered similar opposition earlier this year when he constructed two pieces of protest art in the form of dead soldiers, displaying the first outside his home in Sacramento with a sign reading, "Bush lied, I died."

"It wasn't an effigy-an effigy depicts a hated figure. Mine was just a victim of unjust war," Pearcy said. "Someone climbed my house and tore it down, then gave an interview to a TV reporter."

Pearcy and his wife returned to their house and erected the second soldier a few days later. It was taken down three days later.

Although the attorney general's office does not take part in the selection process, officials have said all works in the exhibit will continue to stay up until the show ends on Aug. 31.

"I'm glad there is discussion about it, because I know a lot of people feel the way I feel," Pearcy said. "This is what we should do when something is happening that other people don't seem to be paying attention to. It's like, why do you put a bumper sticker on your car?"

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