On Sunday, Sept. 15, Ytzhak Perlman performed a program with works by Ludwig Von Beethoven, Cesar Franck and Antonin Dvorak at Sonoma State University's Weill Hall. But Linda Sorensen and I were in for a surprise. Walking to our balcony seats, we encountered in the upstairs hallway a series of striking portraits by Joan Baez.

These portraits, which Joan Baez calls "Mischief Makers," were recently donated to Sonoma State University by the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, commemorating the University's long-standing commitment to civil rights and social justice.

In response to the division in present day American politics and society, Joan chose to paint portraits of people, most of whom she knew, who were willing to make a difference, often accepting suffering but never inflicting it.

As a young artist, Joan has been in the front lines of many nonviolent movements, adding her voice to the causes of civil rights and social justice. She walked arm in arm with Martin Luther King, was thrown in jail protesting the Vietnam War, and helped Vaclav Havel spark a revolution in Prague.

Joan says these Mischief Makers portraits "emerged from the storm of corruption that followed the most recent change of high office in this country. In an attempt to confront the collapse and disintegration of morality being played out for us day to day, I painted portraits of people most of whom I have known personally, who, with tenacity, courage, intelligence, risk taking and resilience have made another kind of social change. Through direct action and a willingness to accept suffering, but never to inflict it, they have confronted pernicious bodies of power ... All have rejected violence as their means to an end."

Below are photos of these Mischief Makers, accompanied by excerpts from the exhibition placards written by Marin County writer Paul Liberatore with quotations from Joan. Paul Liberatore's wife Donna is a partner of the Seager Gray Gallery, and helped Joan Baez exhibit and promote these portraits. The photos in this article were taken at Weill Hall and contain reflections of lights and paintings on the opposite wall with ghostly images of concert goers viewing the exhibition.

Self Portrait, Joan Baez, 2017

In 1969, Joan was photographed by Yousuf Karsh (1908-2002), an Armenia-Canadian photographer whose photo portraits of notable people ranks him among the greatest portrait photographers of the 20th century.

When he photographed Joan, she was living at Struggle Mountain, a compound in the Los Altos Hills that was a haven for draft resisters. Her husband David Harris was arrested there by federal marshals and carted off to prison to begin serving a three-year sentence for draft evasion, leaving behind Joan who was pregnant with their son, Gabe.

"Three or four guys from the Resistance were living there on the property," she recalls. "A lot of this was around the Center for Nonviolence. It was all very political."

She had cut her famously long black hair into a more utilitarian bob, a style that horrified the stuffy, buttoned-down Karsh when he arrived at their mountain retreat. "He was aghast," she recalls with a giggle. "I don't know how he pulled himself together."

In this portrait, Joan, using Karsh's photograph, painted herself with her face in her hands, only this time with her long black hair flowing over her shoulders like the folk madonna Karsh had envisioned. "I gave myself my hair back," she says with a grin.

Maya Angelou, Joan Baez, 2017

"And Still I Rise"

"All the time I was painting I was listening to her autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, on audio books," Joan says. "Her writing is beautiful, her speaking voice is wonderful. It's the story of a child, the daughter of sharecroppers who got raped when she was eight. She didn't speak for five years, but during that time she read everything she could get her hands on. She's an amazing woman."

Joan painted Maya as a young girl, her hair in pigtails with an unsmiling face. Her eyes look directly at the viewer, filled with unflinching intelligence and resolve.

Like Malcom X, Maya rejected black nationalism, believing instead that black and white people must

work together in achieving equality and positive change. Maya said, "Because equal rights, fair play, justice, are all like the air -- we all have it, or none of us has it. That is the truth of it."

John Lewis, Joan Baez, 2017

In 1963, John Lewis was the youngest of the "big six," leaders who organized 1963's March on Washington. In 1965, he lead some 600 marchers across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. While pausing to pray, the group was attacked by nightstick wielding state troopers. Lewis suffered a fractured skull, but managed to go before TV cameras calling on President Lyndon Johnson to intervene in Alabama.

"His bravery went above and beyond," Joan says. In 2016, Lewis lead a Democratic party sit-in on the floor of the House of Representatives, demanding gun control legislation following another mass shooting. He said, 'By sitting in and sitting down, we're standing up."

Aung San Suu Kyi, 2017 and Young Aung San Suu Kyi, 2017 by Joan Baez, 2017

These two portraits show Joan's admiration and affection for Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese champion of democracy. She was the first woman to serve as minister of foreign affairs in Myanmar (Burma). Because she opposed the brutal military regime, she was placed under house arrest for thirteen years. In 1991, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize "for her non-violent struggle for democracy and human rights." The Nobel Committee said it was "one of the most extraordinary examples of civil courage in Asia in recent decades."

When Joan met Aung San Suu Kyi, she presented her with a poem.
"Under house arrest in her apartment
Aung San Suu Kyi keeps the sun at her feet for beauty in the fall,
warmth in winter
and kickball in the spring.
Wildflowers grow on her censored bookshelves
And birds deliver a hundred handwritten messages a day
She carries silence in her glass steps, listening to Mozart in her head
Played on a piano every note sublime
Outside the government crumbles."

Vaclav Havel, Joan Baez, 2017

In 1989, Vaclav Havel lead the "Velvet Revolution," toppling Czechoslovakia's communist regime. He became the first president of the Czech Republic. He died in 2011 at the age of 75.

Joan's portrait of Vaclav captures his cigarette smoking Eastern European charm that she remembers so fondly. She tells a story about the night that Vaclav and some fellow dissidents came to her hotel room in Prague to plot some "mischief making" at her concert that night.

"We all drank beer and planned how we could disrupt the concert that evening because it was on national television." Joan had Vaclav walk into the theater with her carrying her guitar case. After that, Vaclav often joked about being Joan's 'roadie.' Vaclav took a seat in the balcony and waited for the moment they had pre-arranged. About half way through the concert, Joan turned to the crowd and said, in Czech, "And now I'd like to introduce my good friend, Vaclav Havel."

"The place exploded," she remembers. It just exploded. The government immediately had the TV feed turned off. I sang 'Swing Low' to him without a microphone because the sound system wasn't on. And that's when we bonded. Later, he referred to it as the last drop before the revolution.

Ram Dass, Joan Baez, 2017

Ram Dass is an American spiritual teacher and clinical psychologist known for his association with Timothy Leary at Harvard University. In the early 1960's, he traveled to India to study with Neem Karoli Baba, a Hindu guru. He helped found SEVA Foundation in Berkeley, California. SEVA is active internatinally, and works to prevent and treat blindness and other visual imparments. The word Seva (say-va) is Sanskrit, meaning self-less service. The compassion that drives Seva's work starts with the realization that we are all connected as one global community.

In the Spring of 2017, Joan, Jackson Brown, Wavy Gravy and Kris Kristofferson performed a concert in honor of Ram Dass at the Maui Arts and Cultural Center. The event raised $150,000 for SEVA's sight saving programs.

"When I saw him, I thought, 'This guy's enlightened.' He glows, he just glows with an enlightened twinkle.

He can't even turn himself over in bed anymore, and he knows he's dying. I asked him, 'Do you have pain?' He said, "Lots." I said, 'How is that for you?' He told me this whole thing about how the mind does this and his body does that. And then he said, 'And then I love it.' I just sat and cried and held his hand."

Malala Yousafzai, Joan Baez, 2017

When Malala was 17, she won the Nobel Peace Prize. Five years earlier, 12 year old Malala had already won the International Children's Peace Prize for writing a blog about her fight to protect girl's education rights in her native valley in northwest Pakistan when a masked gunman boarded her school bus and shot her in the neck, shoulder and head.

She was taken to Britain for treatment, and after months of surgery and rehabilitation, she was discharged from the hospital in January of 2013. Six months later, she made her first public appearance. The United Nations declared that day "Malala Day," promising to dedicate it each year to relieving the plight of the world's most vulnerable girls.

Joan is intrigued by Malala and her story. She says she sees in Malala that same twinkle she saw in Ram Dass. She goes on to say, "There's something about her crooked little smile. This portrait is based on an image taken from a 2015 documentary titled "He Named Me Malala.

In 2017, Malaala celebrated her 20th birthday, embarking on a six-month "Girl Power Trip." that took her to North America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America.

Reverend William Barber, Joan Baez, 2017

Joan feels that North Carolina preacher William Barber is "the closest thing to a Martin Luther King we have." He's a dynamic speaker with a big body, and an even larger personality and spirit.

At age 15, he was elected president of the NAACP Youth Council. He graduated North Carolina Central University with a cum laude bachelor's degree in political science, followed with a Master of Divinity Degree from Duke, and a doctorate in public policy from Drew University.

He lead a protest at the North Carolina capitol and was arrested for refusing to leave the building over

the Republican party's plan to end the Affordable Care Act, which would cause millions to lose their health insurance. Joan met William Barber after one of her concerts in Raleigh. They discovered a friendship and have been colleagues ever since.

Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, 2016

Joan refers to this portrait of Bob Dylan as "Old Happy Face." Her former complicated, and much publicized relationship with Dylan goes back to the early 1960's. Joan willingly used her popularity and helped Bob launch his career, but she does not take credit for his success.

Joan and Dylan performed together on Dylan's Rolling Thunder tour in 1975 and '76. It was the first time they appeared together since their breakup in 1965. Dylan introduced her as "a special friend of mine, a friend of mine through the years. And she is great!" The sang a duet based on Blowin' in the Wind.

Once between songs, "Dylan said, Joan has a way of changing things. You never know what she's gonna do." Sure enough, as Joan tells the story: "One evening I decided to black out a couple of teeth for our duet. I kept my mouth shut as I walked across the stage to our shared microphone. When I was two feet away I flashed Bob a big smile. He literally jumped backwards, as I remember, and from accounts from my friends in the audience. Later on, old happy face had an uncharacteristic fit of laughter.

Harry Belafonte, Joan Baez, 2017

"His was the easiest portrait I've ever painted," Joan says. "He's so frigging handsome. His face is so smooth. Its like a setup. Belafonte was "the King of Calypso" in the 1950's and '60's, famous for his Banana Boat Song with its signature, "Day-O." Joan first heard his records when she was 16, in high school, when the family was living in Redlands, California, while her father taught physics at the university there.

"He was the first singer I heard in folk music, before Pete Seeger and Odetta," she says. "I couldn't know at that age that we would end up marching with Dr. King and that he would become a close friend of mom's. Joan's mother, often referred to as Joan Sr., had a special place in her heart for Belafonte, an early supporter of Dr. King's and one of his confidants.

She swooned whenever she was around him and kept his signed picture beside her bed.

But he was an even closer friend of Joan's. When he met her son Gabe, who was still in his teens, he took Gabe's hand and said, "If I'd played my cards right, you'd be MY son. "We had a little thing," Joan admits. "I always just took it as a compliment that it came to his mind."

Dolores Huerta, Joan Baez, 2017

Dolores Huerta was a co-founder of the United Farmworkers (UFW) along with Cesar Chavez. She was instrumental in organizing the Delano Grape Strike in 1965. She was a lead negotiator in the first contract after the strike.

Joan writes, "Whenever I was on the marches with Cesar Chavez, she was always there - young and tough and brave. And, she also has lasted."

In 1988, Dolores was severely beaten by the San Francisco police while participating in a protest of the policies of George W. Bush outside the St. Francis Hotel. She suffered several broken ribs and endured serious pain from internal injuries which required the emergency removal of her spleen.

She subsequently won a large judgment against the police and the city which was used to benefit the United Farm Workers.

After her recovery, she founded the Dolores Huerta Foundation to develop the next generation of leaders. She has traveled the country on behalf of women's rights significantly increasing the number of women in government. In 2008, she was chosen to put Hillary Clinton's name into nomination for President.

Now 87 years old, her honors include the Eugene V. Debs Outstanding American Award, the Eleanor Roosevelt Award for Human Rights and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 1993, she was the first Latina woman inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.

Marilyn Youngbird, Joan Baez, 2017

Marilyn Youngbird's tribal name is "Chief Woman Among Chiefs." She is a member of the Arikara and Hidatsa nations. She has been one of Joan's spiritual guides and a friend for many years. Marilyn is a teacher and has introduced people all over the world to Native American philosophy and medicine.

Joan painted Marilyn's portrait from a photo taken during the protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline. Members of 200 tribes attended the protest against this ecologically treacherous project. Joan writes, "Marilyn was accustomed to the weather in North Dakota, and bundled herself into two sleeping bags. She was concerned for my comfort. 'Oh, I'll be fine,' I said in my one sleeping bag. I not only froze, but periodically slid off my little mat onto the dirt floor of the teepee. It wasn't even winter ... "

When Joan's sister, Mimi Farina, was ill with cancer, Marilyn led sweat lodges and was there, supporting Joan and her family after Mimi died in 2001.

David Harris, Joan Baez, 2017

While the hippie movement was flowering in the LSD- soaked Haight Ashbury in 1967, the Summer of Love, Joan was protesting the war in Vietnam, getting arrested - along with her mother, Joan Sr., and younger sister, Mimi Farina - at a Bay Area anti-war demonstration and spending time in Alameda County's Santa Rita Jail.

Her husband at the time, David Harris, the father of her son Gabe, paid an even higher price for standing up against an unjust war, serving 20 months in federal prisons. Harris was voted "Boy of the Year" at Fresno High School in 1963 and went on to become student body president at Stanford University.

He had the resources to get out of the draft if he had wanted to take an easy way out. But rather than flee to Canada as some draft resisters were doing, or come up with some phony medical condition that would get him rejected as 4-F, he and some other courageous draft protesters founded the Resistance, an organization that encouraged young men of draft age to refuse to cooperate with the Selective Service System, to return or burn their draft cards and refuse to be inducted. By banding together, they hoped to help bring about an end to the war. When Harris failed to report for duty, he was charged with draft evasion, a federal felony.

"The day we awaited his arrest, the house was filled

with draft resisters and other anti-war activists," Joan remembers. "When the sheriffs arrived they were invited in for coffee. They refused, put David in handcuffs and we all cheered as they put him in the car." As the sheriff's car drove off, one of the anti-war mischief makers stuck a bumper sticker over the license plate. It said, "Resist the Draft."

After being released on parole in 1970, Davis said, "In prison, I lost my ideals, but not my principles."

Martin Luther King: Joan Baez, 2014

MLK Jr. had Joan's number. "They say he used to prolong his speeches about non-violence when I was there because he loved to see me cry," Joan says, then imitates his stenorian voice, "Every time I say nonviolence, I know Joan Baez is going to be in tears."

She once joined him and other civil rights leaders for a march in Granada, Mississippi. He had come in late on the plane and went to take a nap in a bedroom of the home he was staying in. When he hadn't gotten up and it was getting later and later, Joan was sent in to see if she could rouse him. In her silvery soprano, she sang, "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot."

"He just rolled over and said, 'I think I hear the sound of an angel," she recalls. "Then he said, 'Let's have another one, Joan. And he went back to sleep. It was very funny."

On another occasion, Joan was invited to ride along with Jesse Jackson and Andrew Young when they drove to pick Rev. King up at the airport for a Southern Christian Leadership Conference meeting and march the next day. "I was excited to hear how they would plan the march," Joan remembers. "Instead, they told off-color jokes from the airport back to the conference.

That evening I told Andy (Young) that I was surprised and disappointed, saying I thought I was going to hear how they planned a march. Andy just smiled and said, 'You did.'"

Joan Baez: Ferocity, Joan Baez, 2017

In 1965 when Joan was 24 years old, Joan sat for a photo portrait with photographer Richard Avedon in his New York Studio. Joan described the scene, "Avedon has a fan blowing her long black hair, but it's hardly a glamour shot."

"I look as if I was in a really bad mood," she says. "I never liked this photograph."

She chose it because of the fierce strength and resolve that shows in her face, a determination to get through the emotional difficulties that plagued her personally at a turbulent time for her and the country in the mid 1960's.

The March on Washington with Martin Luther King in 1963 was behind her by then. She recognized the shiny red raincoat in the photo as the one she wore during anti-Vietnam War rallies in Trafalgar Square in London.

"This was in the heat of everything, right in the middle of it," she recalls.

On a personal level, she was dealing with Bob Dylan. "Which may be part of the reason my face looks the way it does," she says with a laugh. The inner turmoil she was going through is reflected in the rough technique she used in the pale blue background of the painting.

"It was a scrambled time for me in my life," she says, "so I just started layering the paint and medium (goo) on the background and hashing and slashing away at it until the chaos calmed in my brain and hands."

Joan could have chosen a prettier picture for this self portrait, a gift to the Graton Tribal Council. But the beauty in this one is the strength and resilience it portrays.

As for Ytzak Perlman and the concert, it was, as expected, sweet excellence with a generous dose of Ytzhak's humor and humanity. As one of his encore pieces, Ytzhak played an excerpt of the theme from Schindler's List. As he played, I recalled bits of the film and how Schindler was an ordinary man in extraordinary circumstances, and when given the choice, did what he could do to rectify great evil around him and make a difference. So too are the Mischief Makers by Joan Baez, Joan's way of nudging us all to make a little mischief of our own.

Linda Sorensen can be found in Studio #5 on the ground floor, south end of the long building, next to Susan Proehl and across from Monty Monty. Her studio shares an exterior brick wall with the ramp-and-gate large south entrance to the building, an excellent position to hear the musical groups that set up in that entrance. Her very large painting of Spider Rock in Canyon de Chelly, Arizona, hangs in the entrance hall.

As in past years for Art Trails and Art@The Source, and last year's Atelier One event, representational landscapes with strong abstract design and glorious color figure prominently. Recent additions include paintings of Death Valley and new local seascapes and vineyards. Also offered are four different giclee prints of her popular paintings, prepared by photographer Harvey Mendelson whose Red Shoes Gallery is at the Sixth Street Playhouse.

Linda is represented by the Art Trails Gallery at Corrick's in Santa Rosa, and the Bodega Landmark Studio Gallery of photographer Lorenzo DeSantis in inland Bodega. Lorenzo will be winding up his gallery business there in October, so don't put off visiting. Linda will be shown at Graton Gallery in late December and most of January, so look out for the December 21 reception's announcement. Her alumni magazine for Berkeley Law will soon publish an article about her artistic career.

Beyond Linda's studio, her paintings are currently showing at:

Bodega Landmark Gallery Collection,
located in the town of Bodega, west end of town a half block from the Casino, and just across from the General Store and the Bodega Volunteer Fire Department.

Corrick's "Art Trails Gallery,"
located in downtown Santa Rosa on 4th Street, just steps from Santa Rosa's reopened Town Square.

Bentonville, AR
Crystal Bridges
Museum of American Art

... IN GRATON, CA ...
Linda Sorensen's studio and Bodega Bay Heritage Gallery's showroom is now located in Atelier One, Graton. You may view all paintings in Linda Sorensen's or Bodega Bay Heritage Gallery's online offerings. Call or email for an appointment.

... IN YOUR HOME ... Call or email for a an appointment. If appropriate, we'll bring the art to you (up to 200 miles from Bodega Bay).

... ONLINE ... Call or email about pieces which interest you. We offer FedEx shipping (included in price) in the U.S. for major purchases.