“An empathetic connection to a single being,” Carter Ratcliff writes about the art of Jan Harrison, “withers unless we weave it into a network of further connections with myriad beings.” 

In Harrison’s work, the “network of further connections with myriad beings” refers to the animal realm, which makes the phrase even more resonant at the end of this unforeseen, unfathomable week. The fragile interdependence linking individuals, communities, and the rest of nature — whether it will be strengthened or undermined — is an elemental subtext of the political season, and a key to a more open, sane, and egalitarian future.