As a poet and visual artist my goal is to tell honest stories. I strive to create art which finds beauty amongst the mundane and celebrates a people of color.
Sculpture specifically offers the chance to experiment in a rather solitary, 4-dimensional space contrary to much of my previous works. While using what may seem as discarded or unwanted materials, this project infuses meaning into items that otherwise linger in between a transitional state of usefulness. What this practice has become feels like a series of puzzles without a. guided image. Each telling the story of Southern America at different points in time.
I have contextually focused on the works of four Black poets who shaped American poetry and literature. Their stories overlap first due to geography. Sterling A. Brown, Margaret Walker, Arna Bontempts, and Gwendolyn Brooks were all born in the south and attended school in the northern states. The second commonality is that each poet at different points in their careers returned to the south to find national and international success. Lastly their artistic timelines overlap because they created a majority of their work between reconstruction era and pre-Civil Rights Movement, also known as the Southern Renaissance
I look to previous generations as an inspiration for shaping my own connection to the meaning of home. While I am excited about exploring other parts of the world, I am also examining the cultural and emotional ties to the Southern United States just as these poets gave character to the places they call home through writing.
If artists of such high stature can venture out and still find a place at home to succeed, it means we all can. And so can the items we collect. Which brings me to the idea of circularity as a method of return and a sister of rebirth. I look to my southern renaissance ancestors who were a part of the artistic landscape in which I now thrive.
