BlogsCommunityMusicArtsScreenEat & DrinkLegals
(Not) Sheep Gallery shines a light on ‘The Problem We All Live With’
How the protests and police shootings of the last year brought new meaning to the title of a 1964 Norman Rockwell painting for gallery owner Caren Petersen
Columbus Alive
Caren Petersen, owner of (Not) Sheep Gallery, said it's likely she first encountered Norman Rockwell’s 1964 painting “The Problem We All Live With” as a child. The now-iconic image depicts Ruby Bridges, a 6-year-old African American girl, being escorted into the all-white William Frantz Elementary School at the height of the New Orleans school desegregation crisis.
“I think it’s one of those images everyone has had burned into their brains, not really thinking about the meaning of its title,” Petersen said recently by phone. “The impression of Norman Rockwell is that he’s this slice of American pie, and everything [he paints] is all good and innocent. And people forget that he chronicled some pretty important moments in history.”