I Withdraw from the Kennedy Center

I am KR Halley, the artist behind The Artist Elevated.
Today, I am making a public declaration:
I hereby withdraw my self-portrait from the upcoming Kennedy Center Exhibit.
I refuse to have my work associated with this institution.

This portrait was created during my time as an art student.
I remember its making well— it is filled with symbols, rage, and the perspective of an Aspergian.
It is the work of someone who was asking hard questions of her government—
And receiving no answers.

I have always been a problem in my way.
📌 I carried a protest sign against a football stadium when art students didn’t even have enough stools to sit on.
📌 We had one shared computer while millions were funneled elsewhere.
📌 I created this piece during the height of the NEA battles, when Senator Jesse Helms famously snarled,
“If artists want to draw dirty pictures, let ’em buy their own damn crayons.”

That single sentence lit a fire in me.

📌 I made a speech to my class that day.
📌 I said that, in his clumsy way, Helms had accidentally touched on a real truth.
📌 I said that a true artist’s focus is not government grants—it is vision, creation, message.

That statement cost me a lot of so-called friends.
I offended many art majors in West Virginia.
I was accused of “declaring war” on the NEA.
I was shocked at the vehemence of the response.

But I am a pattern-seer.
And when people react with outrage instead of thought, I know I have struck something true.

Their anger proved my point.
My classmates and professors were, in fact, more concerned with securing grants than pushing artistic boundaries.
And I, as always, was intrigued.

🔥 No Grants. No Permission. No Compromise.

Helms was a vile, porcine thing.
And yet, here I stand— nearly 40 years later—having done something that would impress those former classmates.

I have never received a single government grant.
I have made a living entirely as an artist.
I built a career on skill, defiance, and intellect—not funding.

I did, once, apply for a single grant in West Virginia.
📌 They rejected me, claiming I had failed to include a required page.
📌 But being who I am, I had filmed the entire process—
📌 I had proof that every page was present when I sealed the envelope.
📌 As always, people lie. I prepare.

🔥 My Lineage, My Identity, My Defiance

I remain as I always have been:
✔ An artist of honor.
✔ An intellectual.
✔ A descendant of warriors—literal defenders of my ancestral homeland.
✔ The daughter of a WWII American veteran.
✔ A Christian.
✔ An Appalachian.
✔ A punk.
✔ A resister of fascists.

And so, with full clarity and conviction, I now say:

🚨 I refuse permission for my self-portrait to be exhibited.
🚨 I reject the Kennedy Center and its repugnant embrace of dictatorship.
🚨 I stand by my art, my mind, and my autonomy.

End transmission.