Last week I invited Howard Christopherson over for dinner in my studio, along with Denny Sponsler. Howard asked if he could bring a friend — Michael Speaker — an artist I’ve admired from a distance but never properly met. The four of us sat around a table with wine, stories, and that familiar Northeast hum where conversation shifts from art to politics to memory without anyone announcing the change.
Howard brought his newly published book, First 100 Days.
It sat there on the table between the glasses, plates and white takeout boxes — the catalog of his project documenting the first 100 days of Donald Trump’s second term. I’ve known Howard for a long time, so what struck me first wasn’t the politics. It was the discipline. Howard built the structure first: one hundred identical frames, hung before a single image existed. One image per day. No drifting. No excuses.
On January 20, 2025, he began.
Each day he pulled directly from Trump’s words and the relentless stream of media imagery surrounding the administration. Statements presented without softening. Often absurd. Often grandiose. Sometimes chilling on their own. Rather than argue with them, Howard framed them.
The process begins digitally, where images are collaged, scaled, and layered with precision. But each piece does not end there. Howard re-enters the work physically — adding ink, graphite, colored pencil, acrylic paint, small flags, and traditional cut-and-paste collage elements. These are not uniform prints but one hundred distinct originals. Each carries the trace of the artist’s hand. Each is materially unique.
What surprised me most is how beautiful the work is. Every page is carefully composed — balanced, deliberate, visually resolved. Color and rhythm move across the sequence with continuity. Seen together, the images read almost cinematically, motifs echoing and evolving across the span of one hundred days.
One image in particular stays with me. It shows a grand auditorium — rows of red theater seats stretching toward a bright domed ceiling, an American flag hanging at the front. Floating above the empty seats is an enormous orange balloon caricature of Trump, yellow hair and small open mouth, hovering awkwardly as if mid-speech, a tiny microphone in hand. In the lower corner, a clipped headline asks what is happening at the Kennedy Center under Trump. The room is built for performance and culture, yet the dominant presence is this inflated figure — comic and unsettling at the same time — filling a space meant for art.
Taken as a whole, First 100 Days becomes a visual diary — a daily record of what was said and done, and how it felt to witness it unfold.
The project was self-funded. Howard priced the originals affordably, and their sale enabled the creation of the book itself. The community quite literally carried the work forward. The project did not wait for institutional approval. It moved from studio wall to collector to printed volume through the support of those who believed it mattered.
Howard answered the moment with attention — one day at a time.
In Northeast Minneapolis, that’s work we understand. We gather. We argue. We make things. We keep showing up.
Written by: Remo Campopiano
More Info & Links:
For more information about Howard Christopherson and First 100 Days, visit Icebox Gallery or go to Howard’s instagram site to view the full series. https://www.instagram.com/first100daysart
The book “First 100 Days” by Howard M. Christopherson purchase information.
Description: 104 pages, soft cover, each print is at 100% size of the original, printed on high quality paper. 8″ X 10″ X 3/4″ with 6” X 6″ images. Book price $200.00 plus sales tax and shipping. Purchases can be made with a charge card over the phone. The remaining originals are on view through 2026 at ICEBOX Gallery for $135.00 each framed and matted with UV glass. Add sales tax and shipping. Contact: icebox@bitstream.net