Wrapped In A Blanket of Love
Our Man-Child
Can't Breath!
My Brother, My Love
While Hoarding Banks On The Dis-Membered
Spectators Consume More Than Popsicles and Popcorn
And The Warehousing Continues
Death in Life Haunts
Another Crucifixion With Bullets
Love Conveys Life in Death
When We Walk Together
Trust Defies The Storm
Take A Knee
This series of images was created for Dr. Charlene Sinclair. After reading Dr. Sinclair’s dissertation, Let the Dead Speak! Black Being-ness as Ground of Resistance, I wanted to create images to complement the writing. From her acknowledgements to the final conclusions, her writing was deeply engaging. With each each word, her ideas came alive visually and viscerally. As I read, images flooded into my mind and I found myself sketching in the margins, high-lighting, underlining, and circling paragraphs. My copy is now dog-eared, tagged, multi-colored and littered with sketches.
2. Our Man-child 3. Can’t Breathe! 4. My Brother, My Love
Cotton fabric and thread. Each panel 18″ x 12″.
Though the specific focus of the experiences described are far removed from my own direct experiences, I felt an unsettling familiarity with many of the emotions and less easily explained phenomenon; Learning from my father ‘even after death’, recognizing similar patterns of family destruction and separation as a result of the lasting impact of colonization and domination, feeling deep connection with ‘the living dead’, and grappling with the idea of the ‘non-individual self’ and the latent power that ‘revelation’ holds, to use Dr. Sinclair’s terms.
5. While Hoarding Banks On The Dis-Membered 6. Spectators Consume More Than Popsicles and Popcorn 7. And The Warehousing Continues
Silk, synthetic, and cotton fabric and thread. Each panel 18″ x 12″.
As I worked to create story boards and design the panels, I focused on the stories that drew me in, as well as on images that might illustrate key concepts and connections that are veiled or hidden from view (this being one of the key points of Dr. Sinclair’s work). I struggled visually and graphically with fabric, cutting, layering, pinning, recutting, re-pinning, and sewing to tap into and draw out the emotional experience and power embedded in each theoretical concept.
8. Death In Life Haunts 9. Another Crucifixion With Bullets 10. Love Conveys Life in Death
Silk and cotton fabric and thread. Each panel 18″ x 12″.
Let us enter a discussion [with the dead] that challenges us to rethink our understanding of past, present and future; to imagine what it would mean to center being, to embrace the power we hold in community, and to reveal the possibility of collective liberation.
11. When We Walk Together 12. Trust Defies The Storm 13. Take A Knee
Silk and cotton fabric and thread. Each panel 18″ x 12″.
Let The Dead Speak!
Wrapped In A Blanket of Love
Our Man-child
Can’t Breathe!
My Brother, My Love
While Hoarding Banks On The Dis-Membered
Spectators Consume More Than Popsicles and Popcorn
And The Warehousing Continues
Death in Life Haunts
Another Crucifixion With Bullets
Love Conveys Life in Death
When We Walk Together
Trust Defies The Storm
Take A Knee