Stereo Propaganda-Reaping The Imaginal Space

2009-01-23T09:39:00.002-05:00

Change Has Come

So, I have crossed the river of youth into maturity. It is an interesting place. I’m holding on to my mojo--my daring spirit, riding the wave of life. Let’s hear it for flow.

America matured on January 20, 2009 when she embraced Barack Obama the first African American President. She sported her sparkling silver strands and reminded everyone that this is the greatest nation on earth and she is still savvy, innovative, intellectual and smart. She embraces diversity.

During the course of the presidential election of 2008, she released the stranglehold of race and gender constructs. She arched her back, placed her hands on her hips and challenged the decisions of the powerful. She said, "It’s time for change."

No doubt, Obama faces an uphill battle. Some people say, "my life has not changed", what depression. But the market crash of 29 did not happen over night. It was a gradual wearing away of the economy. Those in areas hardest hit are already beginning to make the shift, migrating to cities in search of jobs. The people that I know are holding fast to optimism and faith.

Who knows what will happen? I would not wish this job on my enemy. But I remain hopeful and confident that we will push forward, simply because of the simple act of putting our differences behind us and making a different choice.

It’s a brand new day! I love this country!

2007-05-11T08:42:00.000-04:00

Coming of Age
Amanda performs in her Spring concert. She holds the first chair of a concert master!

2007-02-02T20:57:00.000-05:00

The Visual Arts Gallery at Emory University proudly presents, in
conjunction with Emory's 2007 Founders Week Festival:

Collectage: Transcribing Oral Memory
A Retrospective of Paintings, Illuminated Photographs, and Sculpture
by Lynn Marshall-Linnemeier

Exhibition Dates: February 8 – March 10, 2007

Opening Reception: Thursday, February 8, 5:00 - 8:00 p.m.
Featuring live jazz from Emory Jazz Studies and fabulous food.
Gallery Talk: 6:00 - 6:30 p.m.

An online catalogue accompanying the exhibition will be available on
February 15, 2007: http://visualarts.emory.edu/

2006-12-30T01:27:00.000-05:00

Something About This Don't Feel Right
Saddam Hussein is dead. At this point, I am reminded of Fannie Lou Hamer who said, "I am sick and tired of being sick and tired [of death my comment]". This whole business of Iraq has been rotten from beginning to the end (of Saddam)--from our government supplying Saddam with Weapons of Mass Destruction to our accusing Saddam of using Weapons of Mass Destruction.

As I retire to bed, Anderson Cooper promises images of the execution, reviewed by CNN editors who will spare us the gory details. It's almost 2:00 am and no images have appeared. President Bush awoke from his slumber to issue a statement, which talked of our noble effort in Iraq, how Saddam was a tyrant and killer and how our troops came to save the day. I've spent a good deal of the evening painting my daughter's kitchen and in the interim viewing historical images of our noble war effort including gory images of Abu Ghraib. I've listened to hearsay and images of Iraqis celebrating the death of Saddam in Dearborn, Michigan. Two more Marines have died and we are approaching 3,000 military deaths. Ho Hum.

The time of this is all off. It is an Islamic holiday. A time of reflection following a holy journey. Something about this don't feel right and something about this just ain't right. I found these comments on Kuwaittimes.net from Cairo, just after the execution by several Egyptians: "Maybe Saddam Hussein deserves execution ... but who holds the Americans responsible for the 600,000 dead Iraqi civilians in the past three years? That's more than Saddam killed in 30 years," added Safaa Fadlallah, 40, who works in a Beirut shop. "In the time of Saddam Hussein, people were safe in Iraq. Now we turn on the television and hear hundreds of people are being killed every day," asked a 54-year-old Egyptian shop assistant who asked not to be named. "It is better to have a tyrant who keeps his people safe than a situation where shots are constantly being fired in the street." Fatima Haddad, a Sunni Muslim housewife in the Gulf state of Bahrain, said: "What you see in Iraq is much worse than anything under Saddam."

Ho Hum.

2006-11-27T01:32:00.000-05:00

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: Gil Scott Heron

2006-08-27T19:40:00.000-04:00

Changing Skin

It was only a short time ago that I was devastated by the death of my dog Marilyn. She was truly a gift. Marilyn came to me out of nowhere and at a most difficult time in my life. I had just separated from my ex-husband. Marilyn and I were together a short seven years but she provided a lifetime of joy. Pets are like that.

Since Marilyn's death, I have been in a melancholy state. Melancholy is like an unwanted skin. It itches and irritates but is a necessary part of life and grieving.

Although my sister and I visited the Atlanta Humane Society on several different occassions. We could not agree on a dog. After the last visit, I gave up and took to entertaining myself with the birdfeeder and our fish. I decided that she should find a dog.

On Friday, my sister announced that she was going to the Humane Society once again. I paced the floor. She called twice and informed me that she found a dog that she liked. I quite frankly did not care what kind of dog she brought home. I just wanted a dog. Lo and behold she arrived with Grainger. What a great dog! He's a Golden Retriever and Chow mix (check out his tongue) and all smiles. He was given up because he chased horses. I think that Marilyn sent him to us (I sent prayers). Like Marilyn he has a beautiful temperament and is very well mannered. My sis made a wonderful choice.

Sooooooooo. I've shed my melacholy skin and donned a happier one. I'll always love my Marilyn. Her place in my heart is insured. But I am so happy to have another dog to love and to love me back:-D.

2006-08-17T22:54:00.000-04:00

Pelo Negro

Yesterday's blog was about Naomi Sims, the first black model. The one before was about Nina Simone. I ended the Naomi Sims blog celebrating young black women (and indeed elders) who struggle with identity. I decided to go searching on youtube.com for other films about young black women who are discovering the beauty in their blackness and came across this.

ll

2006-08-14T13:27:00.000-04:00

REMEMBERING DAYS IN THE SUN

A friend came over on yesterday. She had just arrived from a vacation at the beach. Being of the lighter hue she place her arm next to mine to prove that she really could get darker. I chuckled and commented that her trying to get as dark as me was like me trying to get as dark as Naomi Sims. We both were melanin deficient. Melanin is the stuff that determines skintone. It's what makes African Americans a beautiful chocolate rainbow.

Our house tends to be full of women for the most part and we all laughed at the comparison/contrast of skin color as we watched our family, whose tone ranged from deep dark brown to very light brown--eyecolor ranging from brownish black to hazel. Skin color can be amusing sometimes.

When I mentioned Naomi Sims, my niece who is a young adult corrected us (twice), thinking that we meant Naomi Campbell. We shot back, no we meant Naomi Sims.

"She was "the first black model", we retorted. Back in 1969, we all ran out and bought the issue of Life Magazine with Naomi's photo on the front. We couldn't believe it. A black model on the front of Life. She was beautiful! To don the cover of a magazine (other than Ebony or Jet, or black publications) was almost unheard of. Naomi's photo was the talk of the black neighborhoods.

I decided to google Naomi Sims just to see what she looked like today and what she was doing. To my surprise there is a lot of information on her on the site and she even has makeup and fashion. You should check it out. In light of the video, "A Girl Like Me", I found this comment on the site interesting. It states:

At 13, Naomi Sims was already 5 feet 10 inches in height. She felt tall, dark and different. Sent from her native Oxford, Mississippi, to better her education in Pittsburgh, she felt she was "a loner-teased and intensely disliked in high school." But family training and her Catholic faith taught her early to walk with dignity and pride.

THE HERITAGE OF NAOMI SIMS


	“I gave them elegance and regality”

It seems so ironic now, especially since we have gone from being almost invisible to being highly visible and exploited. We began with role models like Naomi Sims whose "authoritative ebony inspired all women of color to pride" and now we are face with the image of the black woman being degraded and stepped on.

I'm just thankful that there are young African American women who take pride in themselves, despite attempts to silence them through invisibility. Stand tall young sistas!

2006-08-13T02:00:00.000-04:00

Nina Simone - Young Gifted And Black

Well, it's that time again--school begins on Monday. My granddaughter, Amanda, begins high school on Monday and she is very excited. I am also excited. However, I am also reminded that going through teen years can be very challenging today, especially in the midst of our media dominated culture. As a young African American woman she will face even greater challenges.

The media has been relentless in its treatment of the image of young African American women and as we have seen on MTV, VH1 (see previous blog) BET and others seem to have a vendetta on the image of women of color. I have grown quite weary of "bitches" and "hos".

I remember the song "To Be Young, Gifted and Black" when I entered high school. I used to blast it on the record player--drove my mom crazy. The image of Nina Simone on the cover was beautiful. She was a black woman of consciousness like many other black women of the time--Angela Davis and Kathleen Cleaver spring to mind. They inspired me to be proud of the fact that I was a young black woman.

So I wanted to introduce Amanda and other young African American women to this song and to Nina Simone. Listen and read the words. Keep them close at hand and remember, as Nina sings, "When you are young, gifted, and black, that's where it's at."

Lyrics:

To be young, gifted and black,
Oh what a lovely precious dream
To be young, gifted and black,
Open your heart to what I mean

In the whole world you know
There's a million boys and girls
Who are young, gifted and black,
And that's a fact!

You are young, gifted and black
We must begin to tell our young
There's a world waiting for you
Yours is the quest that's just begun

So when you feel really low
There's a great truth you should know
When you're young, gifted and black
Your soul's intact

To be young, gifted and black
Oh how I long to know the truth
There are times when I look back
And I am haunted by my youth

But my joy of today
Is that we can all be proud to say
When you're young, gifted and black
That's where it's at

2006-08-11T01:54:00.000-04:00

COMMENTARY: ART IMITATING TRIFE

http://www.vibe.com/blog/vc/2006/08/art_imitating_trife.html

Urban Wildflower asks: Does this picture make you want to say anything? Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2006 21:31:10 +0000

It certainly does. However, not so much about the young women who have chosen (or have been coerced) into exploiting their bodies for Cordozar Calvin Broadus Jr.'s benefit, but rather the pitiful response to the photograph by "powerful" media moguls. Whether these women know it or not, they are at the helm of a long "gravy train", no pun intended, and I'll bet that they didn't even get a dog biscuit or doggy treat for allowing themselves to be exploited by Broadus, Jr., MTV and Viacom.

While I can understand the argument that this is so called "social satire", which pokes fun at Broadus, Jr. by making him clean up dog shit, it's who's doing the shitting that angers me. As a matter of fact, this whole notion of feces and black women appearing within the same context of do do, is beyond crass, bordering on evil, and indicates a whole new low in the construct of the "black bitch out of control" stereotype. Now the media posits that the black woman's body is so out of control that she chooses not to go to the bathroom, preferring to shit on herself or in her own space (an indication of an infantile mentality or an animal that has no respect for itself). This lack of self control points to the need to beat her, take her out to the country and leave her in a field, or euthanize her for her own good. Furthermore, her body stinks up the place, and should she be kept at home, chained and locked away from the rest of society--invisible. The question is why? Can it be that our society is so afraid of the power of African American women that it is now necessary to equate her with a turd? Think about the strides that black wmen have made throughout history. Think about the African American female intellectual community. It's powerful. But is it so powerful to necessitate the creation of a new and more vicious stereotype? Damn.

(I am remembering the women of the Congo at this moment).

What I find most appauling (besides MTV's lame excuse for the creation of the cartoon) is Christina Norman's defense of this poop. This just demonstrates that people will do anything for money including kicking their own asses. The bottom line is that whether she knows it or not, she is the one "socially" associated with the image of the defecating out of control black female and Viacom will take her to the country and leave her with the first wrong move, including supporting crap (again, no pun intended) if it suddenly becomes unpopular. Perhaps this is why she is playing the Condoleeza Rice role, shuffling down the corridors of Viacom, happy to accomodate all those "high powered" execs, in whatever manner they choose, including support of this cartoon.

Furthermore, Mr. Clock Man (or should I say Father Time) allowing the network to air the piece on the sister who supposedly defecates on the set, is just as disgusting as Norman. Father Time does not realize that by agreeing to this fiasco he may as well have inserted his mother, grandmother, or sister in the place of the woman because they too will be factored into the stereotypical image equation. And what about the sister who went along with this-- hairweave flying, smiling from behind the bathroom door. "I couldn't hold it" and in a later interview justifying her actions. We've all had incidents where our bodies have chosen to do what it wants to do and our brains have no control, but do we allow it to be exploited. This kind of filth and greed is beyond me. Some old white man said something about "all the world is a stage" (don't worry, I know who) but does this mean that we as a people must continue to be shit on the floor or shitted upon in this performance.

There was a time when we would let "the other" exalt in this kind of madness. There was a clear and definitive line of self respect. "They acted like that", we didn't. But that was in the "olden days", no more. Welcome to the world of assimilation.

I really hate it when people take my life and my self-image into their hands. Damnit I know who I am. Give me a break. Moreover, I am just plain old tired of the bullshit (last pun, I promise).

ll

2006-08-08T20:17:00.000-04:00

strange fruit billie holiday

I have restarted the blog now that Stereo Propaganda: Deconstructing Stereotypes, Reconstructing Identity has opened. The response has been overwhelming and positive. Although art critic Felicia Feister complained about the text and accused me of "retribution" and "overstatement", her critique was favorable. This exhibition was indeed a labor of love and took me to places deep within my creative spirit.

However, in response to Felicia's article I must state that no retribution was intended. I knew that I wanted to deal with the subject of lynching but until I sat down with Wendy Alexander, a photographer now living in Nashville, I had not decided on an approach. In talking with Wendy and a friend about race and its construct in our society, which I see as a trap, the question was asked how would a Buddhist view the racial construct. Wendy immediately answered "Be the Trap." That statement was all that I needed and it opened up my imaginal space, allowing me to view lynching not from the viewpoint of the persons lynched or the perpetrators but from the lens of a tree. I used the tree as a memory device, examining not only the crime of lynching but also the crime of deforestation.

Trees are powerful metaphors in all cultures. In the cultures of the diaspora, the tree can represent the spirits of the ancestors. In Haiti, for instance, Loko is the spirit of vegetation and is associated with trees. We are all familiar with the "tree of life." When we consider the images of lynching, trees become even more powerful adding an additional layer of contradiction and sadness. The song "Strange Fruit" sung by Billie Holiday, is haunting and sad. It clings to our psyche because of the trees.

Lynching is a difficult subject and a sore spot for both blacks and whites. To face the reality that our great nation actually sanctioned and supported this kind of lawlessness is almost unimaginable. But it happened, and we must remember the victims of lynching whether it be covertly, overtly, academically or through artistic expression. It should remind us of where we have been. However, although I keep thinking that mankind will learn from its mistakes (notice I said mankind) the sad reality is that this kind of lawlessness continues both here in the US and abroad. The James Byrd lynching in Texas in 1998 and the lynching of Raynard Johnson in Kokomo, Mississippi come to mind. In Iraq, we have witnessed torture and murder at Abu Ghraib and and the recent rape and death of Abeer Qassim Hamza, a 14-year old Iraqi girl. Abeer's whole family was tortured, beaten and set afire. Her little sister was only 5 years old. . While examining issues such as this metaphorically can be interesting, we should not be afraid to face the reality of the heinousness of these crimes. Furthermore, we should be angered by such lawlessness. I am.

Strange Fruit is a blue song. I call the blues the music that makes us both happy and sad. It is a music form through which we can pour out our frustrations and sorrows while celebrating the fact that we must move on. In the photographic series, "The Awakening, A Tree Remembers", pausing, remembering, honoring, and moving on are the intended messages. To accuse the piece of retribution comes across as an inability to face up to the reality of the lawlessness and violence that African Americans have faced--as if we should make the reality palatable and easy.

2006-05-19T10:10:00.000-04:00

I Like It Like That

I like this idea of self-portraits.
> Tracey

Tracey wrote this to me a week or so ago and I have not had a chance to respond. Why do you think self portraits are a good idea? Do you like the idea of performance that is inherent in self-portraiture or do you feel that only you can best express who you really are?

I like both the performative and voyeurist aspects of self-portraiture. There is a certain degree of scandal that is involved in removing one's clothing and posing as I did in the image from the last post. The image was from a series entitled The Annotated Topsy. This series examined the character Topsy from Harriett Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. In that series I used the universal concept of opposites (night and day, black and white, yin and yang) to tell the story of Topsy's psychological battle for goodness. I use Stowe's work to enter into my own imaginal space by continuing the story where Stowe left off. Stowe literally writes Topsy out of the novel after Topsy is taken to a northern free state. I cover Topsy's experience in the north and rejoin Stowe when she reintroduces the character at the end of the book.

In Stowe's novel, Topsy claimed that she was "wicked" although little Eva assured her that she was not. Topsy repeatedly promises to be good and repeatedly fails. My text explores abuse and neglect of slave children and why their attempts to be good might be doomed to failure. Topsy's quest for goodness is haunted not only by the physical abuse that she received as a child but also by her African ancestors who remind her constantly that she is black and is therefore considered not good by her European oppressors.

On that note, please go back to the last post and look at the work of others and how they use self-portraiture in their work. Is there anything that might resonate for you in their work? Look at the work critically and ask yourself questions? How does Carrie Mae Weems use language, storytelling and photography in her work? What about symbolism? Can the symbolic speak? If so, how? Can you realize your own symbolic language through visual imagery? We have already looked at the women's bodies on the raft and the language that their bodies impart. What other ways can you use your body in your own photography to signify defiance and protection? Might you become invisible? If so, how? Just a few questions to guide you along, but ultimately it will be your own questions that will guide you.

Good luck and thanks Tracey for your comment and for comments from other members.

The above photograph can be found at http://www.iath.virginia.edu/utc/onstage/films/kalemhp.html

2006-05-18T07:29:00.000-04:00

Just Who Am I Anyway?

When I was a little girl, oh around six or seven, my world changed. I was happily moving along in my own childhood (which is an imaginal space in its own right) when suddenly, it was interrupted by race. I grew up in a small town in North Carolina. Typical of most southern towns in the early 1960s, Southern Pines was segregated, which meant that I grew up in a rather isolated environment. Looking back, it was very much a sanctuary. I was safe and secure, situated in a space where I was surrounded on all sides by aunts, uncles, and caring neighbors--surrounded in the same way that the women surrounded and protected MV on her imagined Rice Raft.

But when I was around six or seven, everything changed. I rode with my father to city hall to pay our utility bills. Just behind city hall was a lovely park with swings, see-saws, and teeter totters--just the thing to entice a playful and rambunctious toddler turned young missy. I immediately begged my father to let me play in the park. I can remember the troubled look on his face when he was forced to deny me such a small delight. I learned that day that the playground was not for "colored."

What was "colored"? I remember thinking about my crayons and my coloring books. My crayons, waxy, bright and cheerful, brought the black lines and white space to life--what a dull book without color.

We returned home and within a few weeks, I had my own swing set. Daddy ordered it from Sears and he was proud of himself when it arrived. The motto in our house was they would never be better than we. We are just as good as they. My heart fluttered and my toes reached for the sky with each gentle push from my father's strong hands. I was quite happy.

Throughout my life, my world would be "colored" by race. Like a well-designed trap or a blues song, race has inspired and hindered, caused me to laugh and to cry--all at the same time. I remember first meeting Milburn Crowe in the African American town of Mound Bayou in 1989 and asking him if I lived there could I have had an ice cream in the Crowe's Nest, the restaurant that he ran on legendary Highway 61. He assured me that I could have gone anywhere I wished, because segregation did not exist there. (I later learned that the train depot had a bathroom for colored and white, but no one used the white toilet.) The people at the electric company were colored and as well as the mayor, so had my beautiful playground existed, I could have lingered for as long as I wished. I have often wondered how my growing up in Mound Bayou would have changed how I looked at myself.

Who Are You?

We are Sistagraphy, a collective of African American female photographers. The mere fact that we have chosen to group ourselves based on race says much about who we are and how our world has been "colored." It is for this reason that I am going to suggest, as I did in the last post that we consider self-portraits for this project. I'd like for us to take a look at the work of Renee Cox, Carrie Mae Weems, Nikki S. Lee, and Cindy Sherman and I have provided links to sites that will familiarize you with their work below as well as a site that looks at self-portraiture. Please also Google the names for further info.

Carrie Mae Weems - http://www.villagevoice.com/art/0310,carr,42270,13.html
Renee Cox - http://www.reneecox.net/gallery.html
Nikki S. Lee - http://www.mocp.org/collections/permanent/lee_nikki_s.php
Cindy Sherman - http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/1997/sherman/index.html
Self Portraiture - http://www.shutterbug.net/refreshercourse/portrait_tips/197/index.html

The above photo copyright Lynn Marshall-Linnemeier, 1993

2006-05-08T00:29:00.000-04:00

February 5: I am standing with a group of women on a carpet made of rice stalks. I find it odd because my family grows cotton, although there are many rice farms along the Mississippi. I am amazed that the carpet is so stable. As we float down the river, we observe a white man with a camera. I am remembering Jefferson Davis. He thinks that we are inferior to him and hates that we now live in the house once owned by him and Varina.

"What does he want?", asks one of the women, angered by the fact that the man has "entered" our space uninvited. Our bodies tighten, almost in unison as he points the device toward us. For some reason, I am reminded of my garden and musical notes. Each note, each flower stands separate from the other, yet when they come together it is a harmonious setting indeed. I remember my family as the women draw closer as if to protect me and I realize that I am coming closer to realizing my true self. Photo credit: Portrait of Delia, Harvard (preserve.harvard.edu/.../ images/woman.jpg)

Assuming MV

In this piece MV has actually joined the women on the rice raft. I have assumed MV's body in my imaginal space.

A couple of things might be considered in this narrative. First, rice becomes an important part of the imaginal space. What do you remember about rice? Why is rice so important? How might rice become a part of the installation? Secondly, an intruder is introduced. He is a white photographer. MV remembers Jefferson Davis who frequently visited Hurricane and Brierfield. The Montgomerys actually lived in Davis's former mansion at Brierfield. Dorothy Sterling notes in We Are Your Sisters, Black Women in the 19th Century, (p. 466) "Unlike his brother, Jefferson Davis was a firm believer in black inferiority. To be greeted in his former home by a well-dressed, educated black woman must have been a disturbing experience for the ex-president of the confederacy."

The white photographer has entered into the women's lives uninvited. The women become defiant when he turns his camera toward them. But what do they fear? After all he is far away and the camera is simply a machine. Could it be that they fear he wants something for nothing? I am reminded of the J.T. Zealy photograph above of Delia who was, according to the website "an American born slave." Can a person be born a slave? How would MV answer this question?

Going back to the photograph, what does the women's body language say about them? If you were on the rice raft, how would you pose? Furthermore, how might our installation challenge the way that African American women are remembered in photographs? What other issues of identity come to mind as we float past the white photographer on the our Rice Raft in South Carolina?

Images that we have taken of ourselves challenge stereotypical notions. These images might be vintage photographs of family members that are incorporated into a piece or they might be self-portraits. They might also be both. Has Sistagraphy ever done an installation that uses both vintage images and self-portraiture? Remember, duality is an underlying theme in the installation.

2006-05-04T11:04:00.000-04:00

February 5: Full of animation and spirit. I sang and played [piano] at daylight. After Breakfast I found Von saddled and very tastefully arrayed in red ribbon. The weather being pleasant, I hastened to Hurricane. On returning my horse ran off with me. The saddle turned around and I fell almost senseless. Great excitement prevailed. I was brought home in the buggy. My arm was most injured. I only cried because I had to give up today.

Departing Reality, Entering the Imaginal Space

It is upon this entry from MV's diary that we exit reality and enter into the realm of imaginal space. The term "imaginal space" is loosely based on the work of mythologist, Maggie McClary http://www.mythandculture.com/weblog/2005/10/cultural-mythology-methodology.html. McClary uses mythology as a critical thinking tool to examine culture and prejudice. She defines the study of mythology as "the imaginative study of logic, the hidden mythos in the logos." She writes:

To uncover the mythos in the logos requires one to seek out the stories and myths that lie beneath logical structures, scientific theories, hidden assumptions and implicit biases. What lurks beneath an idea, theory, or bias can bring one into an imaginal space in which the logics are the surface of the story but never the entire story itself. In that imaginal space, I move beneath the surface of a predominate idea (i.e. fatness is bad) in order to find the mythos that reveals the hidden ideas and archetypal structures.

While McClary uses Greek mythology in her literal examinations, I refer to another narrative form, the fairy tale, because of its folkloric nature. According to Catherine Orenstein, "fairy tales are told as flights of fancy. They occur outside of history, in a unquantifiably distant past." (Catherine Orenstein, Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked: Sex, Morality and the Evolution of a Fairy Tale, p. 9)

For me, the fairy tale operates as a kind of meta-myth that crosses cultures because of its symbolism. While the majority population may not know The Illiad they certainly know the story of Little Red Riding Hood and The Three Bears. In my new work the symbols and images that are familiar to us in fairy tales are crossed with stereotypical images (which have become archtypal in American culture). African symbols and representations provide another layer. MV's story is transformed from her journalistic endeavor into an adventure that uses the hero myth as its structure. In particular, I use L. Frank Baum's nineteenth century childrens book (and later the movie), The Wizard of Oz because it is one of my favorite stories and one with which we are all familiar.

In the Wizard of Oz, Dorothy is on a quest to find home--a place of solace, a sanctuary. MV's world is situated in a kind of "slave utopia" the result of the ideals of Scottish social reformer, Robert Owen, and MV's former owner, Joseph Davis. But something is wrong in paradise. While MV may have been afforded opportunities that other slaves could never have imagined, she is still bombarded with nineteenth literature and photographs that disrupt her utopian world. This is where we depart reality and enter into
imaginal space so that MV's diary now reads:

February 5: Full of animation and spirit. I sang and played [piano] at daylight. My musical endeavors awakened Uncle Fate who had arrived very late from Chicago. He trundled downstairs obviously half asleep but with a smiling face and after a glass of juice and lots of sunshine was very pleasant indeed. He presented me with a beautiful stereoscope and several cards that contained peculiar images. I was delighted with the gift. After Breakfast I found Von saddled and very tastefully arrayed in red ribbon. The weather being pleasant, I hastened to Hurricane. On returning my horse ran off with me. The saddle turned around and I fell senseless. When I awoke, I found myself in an unfamiliar yet familiar space, surrounded by dubious characters. It was as if I had been caught in a fairy tale. I panicked because I could not find my self but I was not afraid. Where fear escaped me, curiousity filled its space and I found myself on an incredible journey to find my true self.

The above is the narative structure from which the images in the installation are based. My way of working is reminiscent of the "divergent pairings" that Deborah Windflower discussed on the April 26, 2006 post.

2006-04-30T01:02:00.000-04:00

February 4: [Sunday] All here to dinner except Mat. We had quite a lively day. Some poor woman in the Quarter lost her baby today. Two children have died in the last 3 days. After the distraction of the visitors, I busied myself in my Phrenological pursuits.

Mary Virginia Montgomery was one of four children born to Mary Lewis and Benjamin Montgomery. Both the Lewises, the Montgomerys, and their children were former slaves of Joseph Davis, brother of Confederate President Jefferson Davis. The plantations known as Hurricane and Brierfield, were located near Vicksburg along the Mississippi River. By the time Mary Virginia wrote in her diary, her parents actually owned both Davis plantations and a third plantation known as Ursino. In 1872, the Montgomerys were some of the wealthiest planters, black or white, in the South.

But MV, as she was affectionately known, spent some 14 years as the slave of Joseph Davis growing up at Hurricane. Her father, Benjamin Montgomery, had been sold down river as a young man. Joseph Davis purchased him and brought him to Hurricane. Ben Montgomery immediately ran away. When I asked why he ran, Montgomery expressed that he did not want to be a slave. During the course of the questioning, Davis realized that Ben Montgomery was no ordinary slave. He was quite brilliant and literate, having learned to read and write from his former captor.

Hurricane was unlike any of the other plantations in the area. Some time prior to Ben Montgomery coming to Hurricane, Davis had taken a stage coach ride with utopian idealist and social reformer Robert Owen. Owen espoused that if you treat your workers with some degree of dignity and respect, they would be more productive. The key words here are "productive" and "production." White men often operated under the guise of benevolence and honor in the antebellum South, wearing patriarchy like an Easter Sunday dress. All their insecurities, weaknesses and homophopic tendencies were interwoven within the garment's silken threads, carefully stitched and displayed under the banner of honor.

Patriarchy, productivity, curiosity and science caused Joseph Davis to sit up and listen to Scottish reformer Robert Owen and to institute some of Owen's ideas on his plantation. For instance, many slaves were allowed to learn to read. There were also courts in which the enslaved played a role in determining the fate of their peers. The enslaved captives were also given medical care and housing well above what was allowed on nearby plantations.

In a few short years after being sold down river, Ben Montgomery reached a mutual agreement with Davis to open a mercantile business. Montgomery become so successful at this venture that he actually paid Davis his wife's wages so that she could stay at home with their children. Ben was deeply concerned for the education of his children. At one point, he hired a tutor for Mary and her siblings. When Davis found out, he sent his own children to the class. Surrounding planters heard about the integrated "school" and protested. The school was summarily dissolved.

It was in this atmosphere that Mary Virginia was born--a female slave in Mississippi, whose father and mother, also slaves were allowed to accumulate some degree of wealth. While this may appear to be advantageous, we must ask how might their social status affect they way that they were treated and their attitude towards others. There is something troubling about MV's passage in her diary, especially when she comments on the "distraction" of the deaths of the two babies in the quarters.

It appears that MV has much on her plate, she has been a slave, yet not a slave. She is educated and isolated. She is pretentious, yet realistic being constantly reminded by the flooding waters of the Mississippi River and the weakened levees that her father fights to repair and adjust on a daily balance that life is delicate at best. For an un*slave, however, imagination and fantasy are rich in abundance. The question is, 'how do we get there' and when we arrive, what will we find?

2006-04-26T18:05:00.000-04:00

February 3, 1872: The sun shines beautifully today. Our garden has been reploughed. I am so proud of the prospect of a flower yard & the orchard improvement that I feel like one just embracing the threshold of a new life. I find now the study of agriculture most necessary.(464)

So wrote Mary Virginia Montgomery in 1872. MV's diary as well as the photographs of her family provide critical primary sources and inspiration behind the installation Hurricane. I hope that Sistagraphy will join me in this installation, one of three in the exhibition.

Basically this works as it did for Silence Speaks. In Silence Speaks I enlarged and then painted a stereocard entitled Georgia Cotton Plantation. It is a very well known card (I even saw it in a Toyota commercial). One side of the card was left as originally photographed, however, on the other side, I transformed the cotton fields into fields of clouds. We worked from the diary of Anna Matilda King, a wealthy plantation owner who lived at St. Simons Island. We used information in King's letters to bring to life Rhina, King's personal servant. We examined notions of both physical and spiritual healing. Sistagraphy members mounted black and white photographs of women around the stereocard and also mounted shelves that held recipes for "potions", herbs, and remedies. We sprinkled blue sand on the floor of the gallery and embedded objects in the sand. The color of the sand represented the ocean--water the giver of life and healer. The ocean brought us to this land and keeps untold millions of Africans beneath her waters. In Islam, it is said that water is constantly praising the Creator through her movement.

When I look to the past, I often wonder about how our ancestors managed to survive and cope with the hardship of everyday life during slavery. Even so called "free blacks" were subject to unimaginable conditions. My mind refuses to wrap itself around the living conditions of African slaves in the Carribbean and America. Black women were particularly brutalized. Interestingly enough, I realize that as African American women, we continue to be confronted with the same kind of violence that permeated the past. The black female body continues to be sexualized and devalued. But more on that later.

As I remember my ancestors, the notion of "tranference" comes to mind--the ancient practice of transferring ones feelings and emotions to another object or place--to fetishize oneself if you will--through spiritual performance and imagination. The Africans were masters at transference creating objects and rituals that allowed them to literally "shape shift" as they assumed and consumed energies from both inanimate and animate objects. Trees, plants, and rocks were sentient objects often transformed into fetishes through creative manipulation becoming masks, garments and divining tools. The Africans, the objects, the songs, and chants--all worked together to transfer individuals into another word. This ability to transfer one's self into an imaginal space, an other world, became an important tool, probably the most important tool in the survival of the Africans. It was a world to which white slave owners were not privy.

The series Hurricane uses the notion of transference and storytelling to examine a snippet of life from a young woman, Mary Virginia Montgomery. MV's life is one of contradictions. She was both slave and "free" simultaneously, her family becoming a part of a unique experiment whose roots lie in the concept of Utopia. It examines race through an imaginal space where things are not always as they seem--where symbols and stories conflict, contradict and confound. It is a trip into another world and I will tell more about the concept in my next post.

Peace,
lynnlinn

2006-04-24T14:50:00.000-04:00

Greetings Sistas:

I am very excited and pleased that you are able to join me as I present my first "solo" show in a number of years. I look forward to the installation, the dialogue and the interaction. I encourage you to utilize this blog for questions and comments about our collaborative work.

This installation follows "Silence Speaks", which was installed at The Contemporary in 2002. In that installation historical narrative was re-imagined and reinterpreted using family stories, objects, and photographs that were juxtaposed against the environmental confines of a 19th century Georgia sea island plantation. The installation entitled, "Silence Speaks" utilized the stereographic format as a vehicle to examine the past and the present, allowing the viewer the opportunity to visualize simultaneously how white society viewed "the other" and the way that we interpreted the spiritually charged and transferential world of our own African-American imaginal space.

We return to fetch the past (Sankofa)
in this new work that once again utilizes the stereographic format.

I hope that we can challenge the present by looking at the way that African American women are viewed (or are made to be invisible) in contemporary society. Like the women in the stereocard that we have chosen, we are defiant, cautious, guarded--complex--the antithesis of the stereotype. Our images will speak to these notions.

Below are dates for the show, which will run through the National Black Arts Festival. I will post a more precise timeline once the museum provides me with information. If you get a chance, check out the April issue of Atlanta Magazine. Writer Virginia Parker has listed the exhibition as one of "twelve pulse-pounding, mesmerizing, captivating, thoroughly entertaining arts events you can't miss." It's up there with an exhibition by Chuck Close and the Broadway play "Wicked" just to name a few. In other words ladies, "It's Showtime!"

Dates: July 8, 2006 - September 16, 2006

Opening Reception: July 8, 5:30p.m. - 8:30 p.m.