There were many parts of the Gallery cost that stood out to me. Some parts are always going to stay with me and I will speak about them to people to tell them these experiences. The artist Danielle Scott is a cultural explorer, activist and artist that breathes in the history and spirits of HER PEOPLE. I really enjoyed her speaking about the work. It made me see the work a little bit clearer. Throughout her talk she spoke about some instances that she had.. where she had originally chosen photos of people to be in the work but with a project like this, a spiritual portal seemed to have opened up and either spoke to her, or just had malfunctioned in some way or another. Hearing her speak about these things and having this body of work surrounding us made me feel very connected to what she has to say.
This paragraph may be a bit uncomfortable to read but it’s all the thoughts that were going on in my mind. I’m a very hands-on person. To really understand things I must touch. Hearing her experience in picking cotton made my jaw drop. Especially because it was a birthday gift to herself. That alone made me look at this woman and go “she’s crazy.” But then she did what I thought I’d never do and had a VERY minuscule experience to pick at cotton. In my head I said the words… “This is fun.” And I felt so guilty saying that I heard a few people saying how they liked how soft it was or how this could be used as a stress toy. I was VERY uncomfortable hearing all these things. But it shows you how time changes. I didn’t know how to feel knowing the history behind this act and how long they would go at it until the owners were “satisfied.”
Moving on to the work my favorite pieces were:
King Constance, 2022
With this piece we all know how slaves would be ripped out of their families. All you have is the memory of them once there. When you look closer into the prints you see the names of all the ancestors and you're reading each name and how many people were in each family it takes you through the piece. I love the color coordination and how they compliment each other. Having people's photos physically be part of the story telling and seeing as how some of the photos are blurry from the blowing up to have them print out really allows for this feeling of gone but not forgotten.
“Queen of Angels 2020”
“Close up of Queen of Angels”
“Close up of Queen of Angels”
“Spout Close up”
This piece is so beautiful. From what it's done on, to the colors, and the meaning. I’ll go from top to bottom: at the very top we have a spout representing the flow from one vessel to another. In this case it’s the flow of knowledge from Danielle’s mentor to herself. She mentioned her favorite flower was a sunflower.. spiritually the sunflower represents faith, adoration, and god's love. All things represented in a relationship like the one they share. All the different words around the piece make you wander around it and almost make you read them… you get curious and you get this urge to point things out. And then we get to what the whole piece is made of which is an ironing board. To a lot of people’s surprise, it is a black woman that invented it. Sarah Boone.
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