The Pete Mosaic Story

A digital-interactive album preserving 2019 political career memories of cousin Pete

Embarking on my penultimate semester of postgraduate computer science study in London, UK, the opportunity arose to investigate use of web scripting tools in line with managment of data collections. In a timely fashion, and not long after his South Bend announcement and biography release Shortest Way Home in April, my admirable Maltese-American cousin Pete Buttigieg, Mayor of South Bend, Indiana, began pursuit of his journey as a 2020 USA Democratic Presidential Candidate. There soon grew a sizeable presence of online support. Among supporters was the determined grassroots team Pete Barnstormers who reached out with a small partnership proposal, building on an existing vision prompted by my recent study needs. We were soon to go about archiving online photos and captioned memories of the year's Team Pete experiences, as an accessible, interactive album in the form of a piece of photo mosaic artwork. And what better opportunity to source original online data, collected around a fluctuating topic during this restless time in political history. Summing up the importance of social media to any style of campaign strategy, a team of willing Pete 2020 grassroots supporters quickly found their way to my aid. Greeting me from across the East and West coasts, they enlightened me not only of support present for Pete in the USA, but also internationally.

The mosaic creation process involved sourcing, gathering and crediting permissions for over 3000 photo submissions via the Twitter social networking site, as well as highlight images made available on public domain by Pete for America. A variety of different programs were used in conjunction with HTML scripting to facilitate the mechanics of photo resizing and image tile mapping, text overlay, database filtering and file indexing, as well as color quality monitoring. All submitted images featured in the mosaic were collected with approval from the Twitter handles credited at the time. Whilst submission instructions were posted and every effort was made for multiple sweeps to trace photo tags to @ThePeteMosaic submission account, it is inevitable that some submissions may have been lost in the feed at times of heavy activity, such as during the Liberty and Justice event or Dem Debate evenings. Herewith I release the resulting piece of artwork, constituting the idea of a digital-interactive photo album, preserving 2019 achievements of Mayor Pete Buttigieg. A special thank you to photographer Chuck Kennedy, for use of his key portrait image on which the mosaic has been mapped and constructed over the last sixth months. If for any reason a participating contributor rethinks their submission, please contact @ThePeteMosaic to enable replacement with a reserve photo.

Nicola Jane Buttigieg
Creator of The Pete Mosaic
*not affiliated with the Pete For America campaign

A heartfelt thank you to mosaic support team members via the Twitter platform, for assisting me with the following aspects during final months of the project:

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Original photo: @ChuckKennedyDC

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Pete Buttigieg Quotations

"Politics at its worst, is ugly. But politics at its best is magnificent. Because it's not just about policy, it is soulcraft. And it is moral."

"If you are watching this at home and you are a Republican member of Congress, consider the fact that when the sun sets on your career and they are writing your story of all the good and bad things you did in your life, the thing you will be remembered for is whether in this moment with this president you found the courage to stand up to him, or continued to put party over country."

"For a party that associates itself with Christianity to say it is okay to suggest that God would smile on the division of families at the hands of federal agents, that God would condone putting children in cages, has lost all claim to ever use religious language."

"It's not enough to just replace Trump. We must do away with the cruelty and division that have defined this era, and elect leaders at every level who will build a better, more inclusive future for this country and the next generation."

"You can't love a country if you hate half of the people in it."

"The world needs America, but not just any America... It has to be America at our best."

"The presidency is a sacred trust. Being president means standing with Americans when they need you most. It means sheltering them from the storm. And, above all, it means knowing that the American people are always more important than yourself."

"One skill that I've developed which will need to be at a whole different level is the art of knowing what not to concern yourself with."

"Of course we can find cases of heinous situations, people perhaps who deserve to die. I've just never met anybody who deserved to kill."

"I know the situation is bleak. I know that the urgency can seem crushing. The bottom line is we don't have to accept this. The whole idea of my candidacy is that we don't have to accept the unacceptable."

"I guess I would say that we all have a lot to repent for. I have a lot to repent for when it comes to my marriage: Moments when I've not been as caring as I should be, moments when I've been selfish, moments when I've said a harsh word that I wish I could take back. But one thing that I absolutely should not be repentant for, in the context of my marriage, is the fact that I'm in love with my husband."

"What's worse: a president who is very faithful to an ideology that you find extreme, or a president who is very cynical and appears to have no ideology at all? Neither one of those things is great."

"The center of gravity of the American people is way to the left of the center of gravity of Congress and, in many ways, to the left of the national Democratic Party."

"The world is changing, but it is not changing on its own."

"Greatness will come by looking forward - untethered from the politics of the past and anchored by our shared values - and by changing our nation's future."

"An election is supposed to be about our whole country - we can't just concentrate on those areas where people, for the most part, already agree with us."

I spy with my little magnify... trace over the mosaic or search by Twitter Handle top right of the navbar.

Click on a Team Pete theme to search picture tiles by Twitter Handle