Amy Sherald and the Boys
Category Archives: Art
Amy Sherald & All the Girls
Dots
Bisa Butler & The World of Black Women
African American women and mothers deserve to be seen, heard, paid, and protected. They must be thanked and acknowledged for all they have done and continue to do. We need Black women.
This quote was taken from Bisa Butler’s Materfamilias which was on display in the Spring of 2023 in Pleasentville, New York at the Gordon Parks Foundation.
Feeling the need to get away from the city, I took a short train ride to Pleasentville. It was my first time at the the gallery. It was peaceful. Unlike the overpacked shows at the Met where one can’t read wall text or study art without the humdrum of a crowd, the gallery was still. Only one other person walked in the gallery.
The wall text that introduced the show was powerful. I didn’t know much about Butler’s work. I learned about her family, education, and craft. As a writer, I appreciated the written lessons a bit more than the colorful quilts. Her message was motherly yet radical.
Indeed, we need Black women! I thought while reading and seeing…. Need!! Need. We are in dire need of them. Need. Need. Black women need each other and Black women must remember that we are comrade sisters. We mustn’t forget that we want the power to determine our own destiny and we must continue to fight for it.
Butler’s words were the most striking about her show. The quilts were stunning but the stories that were told were authentic and affirming of African American life in the United States.
I came across a quilt she did at the beginning of her career and by far, very vulnerable.
Her wall text and quilt text reminded me of Ericka Higgins, Lynn French, Yasmeen Majid, Cheryl Dawson and made me feel warm inside as my mother’s love would do.
Happily, I stood there reading with the intention of sharing and reflecting.
In Butler’s story you find multi generational endurance of the Black women. She borrows from her family heirlooms and Gordon Parks archives. She spins the story into something like of Joseph’s coat of many colors. Just like the coat was given to the child of promise, each story is chosen carefully reflecting the Black Body as one with promise.
Towards the end of the show, far on the left side, was a screen of Bisa Butler talking about her career, what it means to be a Black artist and the true responsibility of an artist.
Anthropomorphic Characters
While reading A Wrinkle in Time, we meet all sorts of interesting characters from history and literature.
Along the way we meet the White Rabbit a fictional and anthropomorphic character in Lewis Carrol’s book, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
When I explained the term anthropomorphic character to my students I understood that the characters are animals with human characteristics, however, they stumped me with the question- are monsters anthropomorphic?
Some sites say they are and others say they aren’t. I am not sure.
I think they should be. So I gave my students credit for animals and monsters.
Born to Learn
I went to visit a sister friend in the hospital who just gave birth to twins. This art was on the elevator doors.
A 21st- Century connection between Art and the National Summit on Education
I found the connection between the National Summit on Education and the art at Utah’s museum of Art seasonable.
While at Utah’s Museum of Art, I came across a huge electrical wall panel created by Elias Sime from Ethiopia.
The plaque next to the ‘ Tightrope: Noiseless 1’ (it’s title) reads: Sime buys his materials at the Merkato In Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the largest open- air market in Africa. It can take years for him to accumulate the necessary discarded computer parts to construct an individual work. In this series, Sime recognizes the uneasy balance between the advances made possible by technology and the impact those advances have had on humanity and the environment. Sime says, ” My work reclaims these machines in a tender way, as I am not in opposition to technology. It’s about how to balance it with “real” life. We’ve become off-balance. My title for my series of collages, “Tightrope,” has a double reaming, It’s about this equilibrium, but I also wanted it to evoke a string: if you pull it too tight, it will break.”
The installation connected strongly with the keynote speakers at the conference. While looking at it, I had no questions, nor did it bring me peace. It was just about being in the moment while also thinking about the future.
Earlier that day, I sat in the Grand America Hotel and listened to Code.org founder Hadi Partovi, finance expert Tim Ranzetta and Professor of Applied Mathematics Dr. Steven Strogatz, map out critical skills for every 21st-Century student’s success.
Dr. Strogatz encouraged us to introduce our learners to Data Science which he said was the “modern version of statics, a fusion of many disciplines that give us opportunities touch every field.” Mr. Partovi pushed for us to teach finical literacy, especially to students in high school. As a true educator, he provided curriculum and even offered ways to teach others how to teach the topic. Tim Ranzetta also pushed technology – telling us that the vision of Code.org is that every student learn computer science.
The full video is posted on Youtube:
A life-size Ginger Bread House
Taken at the Grand American Hotel in Utah…
The plaque reads:
When we see ourselves
A Black family taking pictures with posters outside the Ethel Barrymore Theatre after watching
The Piano Lesson, a 21st Century remake of 1930’s play by August Wilson.
History all jugged up
I am standing in front of Simone Leigh’s Large Jug in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
It is included in an exhibition entitled, “Hear Me Now: The Black Potters of Old Edgefield, South Carolina”.
This exhibition opens up a different jug of worms. While most slave narratives of 19th Century speak about the Atlantic Slave trade and the presence of Africans in the cotton fields, viewing Hear Me Now makes the viewer think, well, what else did Africans / African Americans contribute too? What other narratives are they apart of that we know very little to nothing about? It remind us that the slave was not confined or small at all, instead, he had a large presence and was in every walk of life.
While the entire story is told from many view points, the one artist that walks away with you is Dave. Mr. Dave Drake. He found a way to live on forever through his pottery by using the very thing that could have gotten him killed, visual literacy.
Above to the left is the jug that I couldn’t stop circling around. It reads:
nineteen days before Christmas- Eve- Lots of people after its over, how they will greave,
I wonder…. how in the world did he get away with a quote like that? He seemed to share the same status as Fredrick Douglass; yet, he was enslaved!
Douglass escape slavery in 1881. Drake’s pottery was issued in 1858. This means that way before Frederick Douglass wrote his speech, ‘What, to the slave, is the fourth of July‘? Drake was already addressing the same topic throughout his pottery.
Lesson plan idea: Visit exhibit with students and allow them to write ‘what if’ stories for Dave. Allow them to create stories to fill in some of the missing pieces of Dave’s story that we do not know…
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