What would it take to unite the world and for the people of each nation to appreciate the citizens of all other nations?
For one American, it is the act of capturing on canvas the heart of each nation. That American is the painter who signs her name simply as “Potenza” (and, yes, this painter is a woman, and her first name is Winifred).
For years now, Potenza has been at work in a series of paintings which she calls “The Hearts of the World.” What she does is, she takes the elements of the flag of a nation – such as its colors, shapes and icons – and reinterprets them, using the heart as the unifying and dominant element.
She may add other icons not found in a nation’s flag but are popularly identified with the country. Each painting measures 5 ft x 6 ½ ft on canvas.
She has done it for about 180 countries, including the Philippines. Many of those that she has finished she has presented to the respective country’s head of state or a representative of the country. That of the Philippines she presented to former President Fidel V. Ramos during a visit in the US.
A lot of heart
Potenza has been to the Philippines several times. One visit brought her to Subic in Zambales, and it moved then Subic Development Authority chair Richard Gordon to commission her to do a “This Heart of Subic” painting, which Gordon eventually displayed at the airport terminal in the area.
Potenza has also held an exhibit of her renditions of the Madonna and Child at George Sison Gallery in Makati.
Potenza has a lot of heart. She is known for having forgiven the young man who accidentally killed her then 21-year-old son and his fiancée one night of drunken driving in Sonoma County in Santa Rosa, California, in 1989.
She not only forgave the drunken young man; she also worked for the reduction of his sentence. She visited him in jail regularly and succeeded in getting the charge against him reduced from murder to manslaughter.
Rajiv Gandhi
Aside from befriending her son’s killer, she went on with her career as a painter to heal herself from the loss of a son.
But then the death of a famous son in 1991 inspired her to launch “The Hearts of the World” series. That was Rajiv Gandhi, the son of Indira who, like his mother, died in the hands of assassins.
“The Hearts of the World,” she stresses, is intended to inspire people to bring all of our hearts together.
“These paintings are meant to ask: Coming from the heart, what can I do to make a difference in my family, my community, my country and my world?”
Having lost a child, she is aware that the ultimate beneficiary of world peace is everyone’s child. “Every child, everywhere, deserves to be safe,” she stresses.
It may take her a few hours or several months to finish a flag-heart painting. She says all the hours, days and months she devotes to a painting well her heart and from her love for mankind. In fact, in the name of peace, the indefatigable artist has also painted a 360-ft long mural interpreting the myriad aspects and guises of peace titled “The Peaceable Realm.”
Ongoing projects
That mural had been exhibited in the Philippines and presented to President Cory Aquino during the second anniversary celebration of the People Power Revolution. Potenza eventually partitioned the mural and donated a part to each country she visited whose flag she had not rendered yet into a heart emblem at the time she made the visit.
Her commitment toward making people appreciate the difference a person can make by doing acts of kindness has led her to institute other projects that encourage such appreciation to seep out as if from a wellspring.
She also has ongoing projects about women (“Blessed Are Women); the Native Americans (“The Heroic Past of the Native Americans”); ordinary people who commit little acts of heroism for their fellowmen (This American Heart Award and “Loves You” campaign).
To make more Americans appreciate the contributions of each of the 50 states to what America is today, she has espoused the building of We the People Constitution Park on the Statue of Liberty stands.
And because she wants people to appreciate the peace-keeping and peace-enhancing role of the military, she has begun the painting series “The Hearts of the American Forces.”
