In the last ten years I tried to make several people my Art Buddy, but, they betrayed me, stabbed me in the back – and became my Judas.

Trump’s staff have apparently looted the White House. If these objects of art are not returned by sundown tomorrow, I will send an e-mail to Interpol.

John Presco

President: Royal Rosamond Press

A Newspaper For The Arts

 

A pheasant took flight from the White House Thursday afternoon.

Toted by Debbie Meadows, wife of White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, the taxidermy bird was moved out of Meadows’ West Wing office, among other boxes and souvenirs from his time in the administration, and placed into the trunk of a waiting SUV.

With just days left in the Trump administration, the White House complex is abuzz with signs of the end of one presidency and the beginning of another, staffers pushing carts with empty and full boxes, aides bidding farewell to their departing colleagues, and some walking out with large framed photograph mementos — a jolting air of normalcy in the wake of last week’s deadly insurrection at the US Capitol and the anticipation of more violence around Wednesday’s inauguration.

Questions abounded Thursday after a trio of unidentified masked officials walked a bronze bust of President Abraham Lincoln outside the front door of the West Wing. To whom did it belong? And where, precisely, was it off to?

Items such as the Lincoln sculpture were on loan from the official White House collection and part of a documented process wherein thousands of pieces of art, decorative art, sculpture, china, silver and other items are historically

preserved.

 

 

 

Workers move boxes onto a truck on West Executive Avenue between the White House and the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on Thursday, Jan. 14, 2021.

 

These items are available for the incoming president and first lady to select at the start of a new term, as the Trumps did in 2017.