In the first volume, the crew takes shape by accident and serendipity. They are seeking a way to navigate-both literally and figuratively-the challenges of making their way through the rapidly changing political, social, and cultural realities of the 1770s in British Colonial America. Their success is neither planned nor consistent. In fact, that lack of awareness of what is happening around them leads to their entrapment in the conflict itself. They find that they have no choice but to enlist their energies into the rebellion as privateers.
The story continues as the "revolutionary storm rages." Change swirls around them like a gyre. They must prepare for their new role in the war, but they need crew, direction, new skills, sanctuary, and leadership. They bring very little to the rebellion at the outset and face a dizzying array of choices and challenges.
In some important ways, these realities parallel the choices faced by contemporary young adults. The characters in the story encounter questions of purpose, tolerance, comfort with violence, justice, and collective decision-making. They begin to refine their awareness of the world around them, drawn by experience to consider the important issues that thoughtful people recognize-whether consciously or not-as matters that shape their lives. Some readers may see the trajectory of the story tilting toward a deeper concern for the role of women and other marginalized groups in Colonial society. This is important, because history as it has often been told has neglected these perspectives.
Understanding these young adults as they try to make their way through the unknown and into the future is a challenge-for us and for each of them. Choices, often very limited ones, steer them toward consequences and outcomes altogether unforeseen.
If one stands on the deck of a ship, the wake off the stern reveals that the sea has been churned. It heaves with bubbles and foam as a consequence of the ship's passage through the water. It sends ripples outward beyond the dimensions of the ship, changing the appearance of the sea's surface. One can only speculate how far the impact reaches and whether, below the surface, unseen change is taking place. Most remarkably, with the passage of time and distance, the sea seems to erase the impact-the wake disappears. To a casual observer, it may seem that the consequences of the ship's passage have been swallowed up by the sea's natural form.
Did something important happen? Or did something trivial happen? Should we expect the sea-or history-to tell us?
The crew of the PYGG is about to face and journey into a raging storm, as dark, violent, erratic, and uncertain as any that nature can conjure. For them, it is a rebellion whose creation, conduct, and purpose are unclear. Yet they are already in its midst. Like the wake that seems inevitably to vanish, will their lives, their energy, and their sacrifices disappear without a trace?
Their experience is transformed by necessity. They confront the realities faced by women trying to manage their colonial roles while also meeting the challenges brought about by rebellion.
Dick Farkas grew up on the East Coast sailing in Perth Amboy, New Jersey. With an undergraduate degree from Northwestern and a Ph.D. from the University of South Carolina in Political Science, he has been teaching college students for over fifty years about the ways politics intersects with life in a world with accelerating rates of change. Teaching about "comparative" politics, the responsibilities have facilitated travel to over sixty countries, four continents, six oceans, three circumnavigations, and countless relationships with fascinating characters. Politics is a driving force in our lives whether students and young adults understand and appreciate that or not. Making Way is the attempt to challenge young adults to think about that and to coax them to set their own courses.
M.A. Papanek-Miller is an artist who creates layered mixed media and drawing related works that are informed by our human relationships with animals, plants, water access and use which are seasoned with a bit of humor and worry. She explores quiet color on a variety of different sizes and surfaces and the images in her works are often drawn from collected childhood and related objects which contain their own individual stories. She was awarded an Artist Initiative Grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board with support from the National Endowment for the Arts, received an Individual Artist Grant from the Seattle Arts Commission, and exhibits with Jean Albano Gallery inChicago. She has an MFA in Art from the University of Houston, TX. and she is an Art (drawing) Professor and the Director of The Art School at DePaul University. She served in similar positions at The University of Montana, Bemidji State University, MN, and at Cornish College of the Arts, WA. She lives and works between Chicago and the Northwoods Lake Country of Minnesota.
Jessica Larva is a contemporary artist whose work explores phenomena of visual perception. She earned a BFA and MFA in new media art at the Ohio State University, and now lives in Chicago, Illinois where she is an Associate Professor in the Art School at DePaul University. Larva's artwork has been exhibited in notable exhibitions including solo shows From Where I Stand in Riley Hall Gallery at the University of Notre Dame, Leeward at the College of Southern Nevada in Las Vegas, and Fluid Horizons at Ohio Dominican University. Other recent exhibitions include Flourish at the d'Art Center in Virginia, Insight at the Cape Cod Museum of Art in Massachusetts and Inhabit at theManifest Gallery in Ohio. Larva was formerly the studio assistant for artist Ann Hamilton and a founding member of Fuse Factory, an art and technology non-profit. Visit her artist website at jessicalarva.com.
