Today’s random object was a toy bust of John F. Kennedy. While I sketched, we talked about what made Kennedy’s presidency so striking.
Sketch and Coffee Live at 5:30am Texas time
JFK’s term landed smack in the middle of global pressure, civil rights unrest, and nuclear paranoia. He wasn’t universally beloved during his lifetime, but his death on November 22, 1963 was so sudden, so public, and so widely broadcast that it seared itself into global memory. Everyone alive then remembers where they were. The event set off a rush to preserve his image. His busts, books, and a full presidential library established faster than any before.
But the most enduring legacy might not be the busts or speeches. it’s the myth of Camelot. Just days after the funeral, Jackie Kennedy gave a carefully managed interview to Life Magazine, framing her husband’s presidency as a golden age that flickered and vanished too soon. She handpicked the writer, edited the quotes, and helped shape one of the most powerful political myths of the modern era. That’s what I tried to capture in today’s sketch: not the man himself, but the image the world chose to remember.
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