Good/bad government -- murals in Seattle

The Seattle Times calls our attention to a set of murals in the law library of the William Kenzo Nakamura U.S. Courthouse in Downtown Seattle ("These Seattle murals speak to the Trump era. They're hiding in plain sight").

“The Effects of Good and Bad Government,” two 9-foot-tall panels featuring well over 200 figures, dramatize in intricate, elaborate, painstaking detail the tangible impacts government has on people’s lives.

In the “Good Government” painting, people are thriving. Under “Bad Government,” they’re dead-eyed, smoking and drinking. (Ellen M. Banner / The Seattle Times

Is our federal government making America “bigger, better, richer and stronger than ever before,” as Trump claimed in his State of the Union? Or has Trump “endangered the long and storied history of the United States of America being a force for good,” as Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger said in the Democratic response? Either way, you’ll find a rich allegory in the paintings.

They are not always accessible, within the sporadically used Sixth Avenue downtown courthouse. But this week the four-decade-old paintings will be on display for all to see, showcasing the work of an artist who was thinking deeply about timeless themes of good and evil, justice and tyranny and how our American experiment in self-governance plays out every day in ways big and small.

The article introduces us to the artist, Caleb Ives Bach, once a very successful CIA agent, who left the profession somewhat disillusioned, and he became a teacher and artist.

The murals are open to the public monthly, but only when the Court is in session, which is about once per month, as the Court moves to a different part of the state other weeks.