Series

I haven't gotten much drawing done but I have gotten inspiration!  I went to the flea market about two weeks ago to sell.  One of the vendors inspired my newest venture:  Art Cards featuring the Adinkra symbols.  Now I have done work with the Adinkra symbols before a long time ago in pastels.  The work, while attractive, felt too contrived for my liking so I abandoned the process/approach but never the idea.  After seeing the artwork on the African Tarot cards that she was carrying, the idea of Adinkra cards seemed more and more the way to go.  A series with the symbols and an image that doesn't immediate convey the meaning unless the viewer digresses on it beyond what's presented.  This is a project in which I can take some of the wisdom of my youth (much of which is not readily understood to the uninformed) and incorporate it into my work.  I am still sketching out the details and will update when I have a good grip on my ideology and approach. 

I'm keeping track of the various series that I have going on.

The "Lost Within" Series is never complete.  Actually all of my work still falls under this series' artist statement.  It is solely a b/w exploration.  I love working with charcoal and ink.  I will continue to explore ancestral connections and the psychological effects of the past on the present day condition of blacks throughout the diaspora.  I will continue to use children as that vehicle for exploration.

The "Awakening" Series is very much a work in progress.  It deals with spirituality and religion.  Many of my sketches haven't come into fruition primarily because what's an objective look at reality is for me is someone else's spiritual cornerstone and staunch belief system.  I've been on the receiving end of challenging various belief systems before especially Christianity and it is not pretty.  I won't engage in any verbal exchanges any more...I'll let me art speak for me.  My goal is to make an image that is immediately understood as something far from what it was ever intended to be.  An African child in bondage on a page telling the story of the Israelites sojourn in bondage are images that don't often correlate.  It is representative of not only the physical bondage but the psychological bondage that many African Americans are still gripped by.  The story of our true salvation is shrouded in the guise of the Christian (and other) religions which provided the ultimate tool to enslave the minds of our ancestors and make them better tools of service.  It is a tactic that has worked to present day.  A young black woman on a page depicting the wealthy parishioners as those being closest to God and that God was closest to them.  Deeper reflection on that ideology creates an uncomfortable juxtaposition of race and spirituality.  I have another image that was hard for me to draw last year.  It was originally intended to be a part of the Lost Within series but the research for it was too difficult for me.  It still is...also the backlash for such an image to portray to the world is not one that I'm prepared to take yet.  They will remain sketches in my sketchbook until further notice.  I'm debating on whether to make it large and intrusive or small and intimate. As far as the technique, I love this approach.  I get to be loose and tight, conventional and experimental. I'm contemplating a larger piece in charcoal/ink/gouache coupled with excerpts from James Weldon Johnson's The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man.

The "Adinkra" Series...I won't call it that officially but it is just a fledgling idea.  I did some sketches and drawings schematically but to be honest...I've been pretty much stagnate.  I collected some pages to be drawn on so I will be organizing.  I've been doing some life studies---there is nothing I love more than to people watch.  My husband says I'm being nosy.  He's concerned that people might react adversely to it but in my experience (nearly ten years) no one ever has.  As a matter of fact most people are flattered.  This past weekend I got caught in the act by a vendor next to us drawing some passersby and he was surprised when I pulled out a sketch of him!  He got so tickled!  Then he asked for my card and the possibility of a commission of his wife. 

Now that I think about it...I guess it is kind of being nosy lol.