A Seattle artist cuts through the chaos of a pandemic

Last spring, Barbara Earl Thomas was working diligently on her upcoming exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum, painstakingly cutting silhouettes of Black and brown children into large swaths of stiff paper. Then the pandemic brought everything to a halt. But Thomas stayed on course, at first working alone, and eventually aided by assistants in her outdoor studio. With the nation’s attention newly alert to social justice, she expands upon her lifelong journey of exploring race and innocence through revelatory visual art.