BRIDGET MILLER
Artist and Designer
America is a business. Everyday we all watch people struggle-whether they can't find a job to pay a livable wage, are dealing with the ongoing fight with the extreme costs of healthcare, are fighting homelessness, or the college debt crisis. All of this combined makes everything seem kind of like a circus. So many people wake up, go to work, go home, then go to bed - just to repeat it the day after that and the day after that. Expected to do our tasks with a smile on our face regardless of whatever it is that we're going through because the show must go on.
Meanwhile people at the very top - the ringmasters who are rich beyond almost anyone's wildest imagination - take advantage of all the clowns running around just trying to scrape by. Everyday we're sold on the foundation of America - where if you work hard enough and you keep working then you'll be able to pull yourself up by your bootstraps. The hope that you can work your way up from being a clown to being someone admired - whether it's an acrobat that people watch with amazement or maybe even one day being a ringmaster yourself. Yet a great deal of the time if you work hard and keep working you'll wake up one morning and realize that that's all you did with your life. You never took that vacation you wanted to take, you missed your kids growing up because you had to work all day long just to be able to support them, you never picked up the hobby you always wanted to, the list of things so many people have missed out on goes on and on. Unless rebirth or afterlife actually exists - then everyone is granted one life. Do you really want to spend your whole life being a cown in a circus that doesn't actually care about you?
