“The Battle of Blair Mountain” is a 12ft x 10ft 7.5 x 10’ realist work by Maeve Cotter depicting the 1921 labor uprising, the largest in US history.
It debuts in Manhattan on August 6, 2026.
THE ARTIST
Maeve Cotter, raised in forests of rural Oregon, is a trans woman artist and instructor specializing in realist portraiture, figure drawing, and painting. Thoroughly grounded in the discipline and technical excellence of Russian, Soviet, and Chinese academic art, Maeve is passionate about carrying that artistic tradition into the modern era.
The daughter of local artists Joe Cotter and Kolieha Bush, Maeve has been drawing and painting since childhood. Past ventures include working as an artist for McMenamins and being lead artist on the 2016 Estacada Artback mural “Illumination,” numerous private portrait commissions, and multiple gallery exhibitions. Maeve spent a year studying classical drawing in master artist Juliette Aristides’ atelier, completed the extensive Russian Academic Drawing Course on New Masters Academy, and has taken workshops with Ivan Loginov, Iliya Mirochnik, and Gilberto Geraldo. She is c0-owner and instructor at High Low Art Space.
In 2026 Maeve rented a larger studio with the goal of producing large-format paintings that depict the rich (but hidden) American history of multi-national unity, working-class resistance and struggle against oppression. The Battle of Blair Mountain is her first such piece
THE PROJECT
Maeve began this project amidst two overarching realities in America.
The first is the 250th anniversary of the United States, celebrated under a far-right administration taking unprecedented measures to tell a false version of history and erase the past. From banning books, to ordering government bodies to remove all negative references to slavery, Trump’s “America at 250” aims to promote a white supremacist vision of our country.
The second is the rapid rise of Artificial Intelligence, in particular in the world of art. The societal and cultural damage of such a direction is unclear now but is already beginning to reveal itself.
The Battle of Blair Mountain and subsequent works by Maeve Cotter will attack these beasts of our moment.
It will promote and celebrate the moments in US working-class history that deserve to be more widely known, and that directly counter the narrative of division. The Blair Mountain uprising, led by men and women, by Black, Latino and white laborers, is an immense yet never-taught struggle that embodies the power of working-class unity.
The pieve will also demonstrate the power of art using only centuries-old methods. The painstaking process of modeling, props, studies and much more for a work of this size will be part of the final exhibit itself. A diametrical opposite of the process of AI art. Herself a painting instructor, Maeve advances the Soviet socialist teaching: “Anyone can learn to do it.”
Today, this style of realist painting is dominated by a conservative world. It is mostly utilized as commissions to paint small-scale portraits of the very rich. With this project Maeve Cotter aims to bring it back to its origins as one that honors the powerful and proud legacy of those too often ignored–and now erased–from our nation’s story.
THE EVENT
The Battle of Blair Mountain will show at The People’s Forum in Manhattan on August 6, marking the 105th anniversary of the uprising, with Maeve Cotter presenting the piece.
The event will feature the painting studies, props, and modeling setups used to create the final product. The final 12ft x 10ft painting will be present to see in all its wondrous detail, and available to purchase.
Tickets available here [link]
On August 7, Maeve will teach a drawing workshop in the traditions of Soviet mass education that trained thousands of new artists; the lineage she herself came from.
Get your tickets for the drawing workship here [link]
DONATE
This project has been entirely funded by the artist. If you’d like to make an urgently-needed contribution to cover art supplies and logistics, you can do so here. [GoFundMe link]