Sources of Artistic Inspiration
Annotated Bibliography
learning my ancestry, my history, and myself through the exploration of southern black artist and their work.
INTRODUCTION
Gips, Terry, and College Park. Art Gallery University of Maryland. Narratives of African American Art and Identity: The David C. Driskell Collection. College Park, Md. : San Francisco: The Art Gallery and the Department of Art History and Archaeology, University of Maryland, 1998. Print.
Hill, Grant, and Alvia J Wardlaw. Something All Our Own: The Grant Hill Collection of African American Art. Durham: Duke University Press, 2004. Print.
Bernier, Celeste-Marie. African American Visual Arts: From Slavery to the Present. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008. Print.
Hudson, Ralph M. Black Artists/South. Huntsville, AL : Huntsville Museum of Art, c1979., 1979.
African-American art for the past century has come to embody the common theme of personal and cultural identity. This journey of self-expression and search for culture and heritage have been in the minds of many African-Americans artists when developing their own aesthetic styles and voices across the many mediums of art. I believe this is a distinctive power art has a facilitator of communicating expression and experience. Alongside researching my family’s story, I want to search for art that reflect the experiences I am discovering within my family’s story. I want the works I select to be visuals of my journey into the past. Through the lens of both a creative eye and art historian, I desire to gain a better understanding of how growing up in the south can influence a family’s story.
It is imporatnt to understand the history and connection of art and black artist before diving into the the other topics in this research. This will provided a background into what context African-American artist felt and still feel about replicationg the black identity in art.
By replicating European practices black artists fought to be considered genuine artists in the nineteenth century. Painted landscapes and still life works were popular in art at this time. Many black artist would take this mapping out of the 2D picture plane to depict black men and women in middle class genre scenes, depictions of ordinary life, although most blacks lived in poverty. Despite limitations, many would find success in furthering the presence of black artist in art world at the time.
The twentieth century saw African American artists beginning to embrace African culture and heritage as intertwined with black identity. To distinguish themselves apart from their white counterparts, artists built upon the idea of black identity to glorify differences from white American norms.
African American artists continued to develop their own visual style and by mid century, their art reflected the social and political climate of the country at the time; heavily influenced by the Civil rights movement. Inspired by the institutions
of segregation and racism, these artists created work that depicted the negatives affecting the nation, experience mainly in the American south, using art as a medium to articulate the black experience.
Black contemporary art and artists today explore the interest in the world’s perception and thoughts on being black or of African descent. What constitutes “black art”? Artist begin to expand upon this question and start to think a broader consideration of other cultures of African descent. Studying the African diaspora has risen, suggesting the possibilities of cultural commonalities and perspectives among black people in varying geographical locations. African American artists begin to express the construct of identity and the narrative this construct portrays.
In this annotated bibliography I have combined sources that I’ve analyzed and researched, with works of art that best displays the information I collected. These sources are mainly academic, mostly from works of African American writers, art and general historian, collectors, critics, etc that have written about the main aspects i am trying to discover in these journey of my family’s history and my personal search to discover my self because of it: The importance of home, being a southern native, faith and family, and the black woman and her her role in the family. I also found works that express the socio-economic circumstances that many in my family’s history experience living in Coweta County, Georgia. I hope to learn how living in this county for over 200 years have affected my family’s culture and beliefs and how have they influenced me personally.
“Contemplation of Home”
Thompson, Robert Farris. Flash of the Spirit: African and Afro-American Art and Philosophy. New York: Random House, 1983. Print.
While reading Robert Thompson’s Flash of the Spirit: African and Afro-American Art and Philosophy, a part of his text stood out to me. He speaks of Black folk artist Henry Dorsey; and Henry’s story is very interesting. During the spells before the Great Depression, this black boy form Kentucky traveled the American south in his youth. “Set off on an odyssey of escape and self-discovery,” Dorsey head cross country eventually heading to the lower south (Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama). He’s journey gave him insight on the joys and horrors of the segregated south; giving way to a source of inspiration for his folk art.
Folk art in itself is inspiring; it is the art of the everyday. It speaks to traditions applying elements from one’s community and culture. Folk Art can represent a sense of self-identity and cultural awareness. Artists that work from the aesthetic collect and create from the random, causal objects cascaded around them. Henry Dorsey returned home to the Bluegrass State. Later in his life, at age 60, Dorsey began creating something out of anything; many pieces of sculpture and installation, using his house and yard as his own canvas. He used his home as an outlet of expression and self-identity. I thought, “His Home became is masterpiece!” I know this saying is cliché but it hit me… Home.
This artist unique way of decorating the home, transported me back to my five-year-old self, looking up at the random objects in my grandparent’s home.I remember vividly in my grandmother’s kitchen… I started to question what significance these objects said aboutmy grandmother’s identity? What can these antique items say about her experience, about our family’s experience? How have they shaped my own experience or what do they say about my own identity?
“The Home-House”
Gordon, Asa H. The Georgia Negro: A History. Students’ ed. [Spartanburg, S.C.: Reprint Co., 1972. Print.
Above, Jones depicts the beauty and simplicity of the southern home.
I once heard that home is a place where you belong., that belongs to you and you belong to it. It provides stability, order, joy, and comfort. Your take home where ever you go, because you ARE home. One must understand that home is important to the southern black family. It’s where you where home grown and still rooted till this day.
I believe essential to every black family, especially those from the south, is a place that is constant in their lives. These place laws the foundations of your life; these foundations make you who you are, they are apart of your identity, your experience. We collectively refer to this place as the “home house”. It’s a place where your mama and her siblings grew up, a place where you and your cousins where raised. It’ll eventually be the place where you’ll bring your own kids in the future.
My family refers to our particular home house singularly “Downthehouse”. If you don’t pronounce it as one word, your defiantly not saying it right. When we say it we know we are taking about that long, green farm house on Lower Fayetteville Rd. in Newnan. The Bass family has always lived on this road, all in homes they built themselves. Beside our home-house stay my mother’s cousins, across the street is my great uncle’s home; his children stay right beside him. My uncle, my mother’s older brother, has a house a little ways down. My eldest aunt and her family
The family home plays a essential role in the foundations of a Southern Black family’s culture. It can be considered a centerpiece for many coming together, fellowsship types of event. Easter DInners, 4th of July celebrations, Thanksgivings, Christmases, and Birthdays: all gatherings where
“Examining the Southern Landscape: Through the Eyes of Visual Writing”
Jones, Mary Gibson., Lily Elizabeth Reynolds, and Newnan Daughters of the American Revolution. Georgia State Society. Sarah Dickinson Chapter. Coweta County Chronicles for One Hundred Years: With an Account of the Indians From Whom the Land Was Acquired, and Some Historical Papers Relating to Its Acquisition By Georgia, With Lineage Pages. Atlanta, Ga.: The Stein printing company, 1928. Print.
Weltner, Charles Longstreet. Southerner. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1966. Print.
Arnold, Edwin T. ‘What Virtue There Is in Fire’ : Cultural Memory and the Lynching of Sam Hose. University of Georgia Press, 2009.
A quixotic southern landscape; children play in a field of flowers yet an uprooted, decaying, barbed wire wrapped tree is central in the piece. An odd site. Although appearing to be a whimsical scene, it has a dark side. As we recede to the backgound, this beautiful field of flowers shifts into acres of cotton. Slave dwellings litter the fields, slave children picks contents. The artists creates a landscape of the beauty and truth behind the Old South; its light and its dark. Bright colors, suckle flowers, and positive play to the south’s energy and romance, yet at its core there is a somber truth at its roots. This southern landscape is where my family finds its roots laid bear.
“In all of the United States,i can find only one town called Newnan… known as “The City of Homes” for the antebellum and late- nineteenth- century residences that still line the southern half of its main street. The downtown square, the four one- way roads enclosing at its center a stately courthouse topped by a grand cupola, is a mixture of old and new, but the overall feeling is still that of the small town, a comfortable and pleasant place that has largely resisted change.” — Edwin T. Arnold, ‘What Virtue There Is in Fire’
That quotation above signifies most of what I know about Newnan, Georgia; the setting in which my family finds its roots. Newnan has became a very progressive city before my eyes, however I think for my research it is important to understand this city and counties’ past. I also wanted express my reflection of identity within this space.
February 12th, 1825. Purchased land from Creek Indians becomes apart of the United States for Georgia. Named after the Cherokee Indian tribe that also occupied this land, Coweta becomes the home of my ancestors. The book quotes a vivid, visual description of the Coweta’s beauty, “…waters in the creeks and rivers as clear as crystal: rich valleys hills… covered with thick forest. A land of beautiful flowers — white, pink, yellow red honeysuckle, red-bud, dog-wood blossoms, wild roses and many others.”
I spent many of my years earlier years spending most of my weekend and summers there. I can remember the heat of a dry July’s midday and I trying to keep cool from it in the well air conditioned safety of the house. Let me tell you a Georgia Summer gets very hot, to hot to keep yourself sain in some moments. The best times to
Being a Georgia native, I’ve always appreciated and admired the beauty of the south. I feel if you grow up here, especially from rural parts, there is this sense of being tethered to its serenity and its simple way of doing things. I believe it’s fine to say that if you where born here, you always get this innate feeling of pride in being a southerner. It is truly its own separate world, unique from the rest the States. We southerners can very be fond of each others. We like what we like our sound and distinct courtesies. Southerners have a certain attachment for “ a native wit, a personal generosity, a certain earthiness born from a closer association with the soil” (Weltner, 1966). We have an affection for this region and with all its faults we still have appreciation for it in the end.
With this attitude and history mind, I began to question my families begins in this county. Who was first in my family to live here? What made them come to Coweta County?
Newman-Coweta Historical Society. A History of Coweta County, Georgia. Roswell, Ga. : Newnan, Ga.: WH Wolfe Associates, 1988. Print.
A History of Coweta County, Georgia was an impactful source in my research. In reading the first page, detailing the birth of this land, there was already evidence of my family’s presence in this county. The author notes that at that present time of Coweta’s establishment, only one man lived within the county in 1825; my fourth great-grandfather Aquilla Hardy. I was very much astonished to find my white ancestry so quickly. To see where you come from in the first book I read, on its first page was surprising.
Born March 10, 1794, Aquilla was the son of Jesse Hardy and Elizabeth Rasor, settlers who traveled to Georgia from North Carolina. He grew up in Lincoln County, seating on the Savannah River across from South Carolina. He was a farmers son, and like his farther before him, ‘Quilla decide to head south to acquired his own land for himself. At the time of his death in 1884 Hardy owned four- hundred acres worth land, valued at $1,600 or $43,500 by today’s standards. He was a father of many children, and a divorcee that married once again in his later years.
Based on my findings in the 1860 U.S. Federal Census — Slave Schedules the county, Aquilla Hardy held only one slave, name unknown, my 4th great-grandmother. She was 52 at the time of this census and Hardy was 66. It was depressing to learn that i would not know the name of my first black ancestor; the woman that would give birth to Isaac Hardy, my 3rd great-grandfather. This document provided me the the settling truth, or realization to the fact that I am a decedent of a slave. It was expected but i was not expecting it to be found within my first few days of research, I thought i would have to go backward and backward, trying to find source after source to discover this information. However I do find solace in now knowing where my “black” identity comes from.
The slave scheduled also provided a startling circumstance that I was definately not expecting. There is a Fugitive of the State column of the document; it has been check. My great-great-great-great grandmother was a runaway! I began to question what circumstances opted her to flee to the north? What abuse did she experience? What were her fears and dire circumstances that would have brought on this fleeing? And what was the punishment for getting caught?
Then an unsettling thought occurred to me… Did she runaway and leave her son Isaac behind?
A Portaiture of a Southern Negress
Walker, Kara Elizabeth, et al. Kara Walker : My Complement, My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love. Minneapolis : Walker Art Center, c2007., 2007.
Walker, Kara Elizabeth and Ian Berry. Kara Walker : Narratives of a Negress. Saratoga Springs, NY : Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College : Williams College Museum of Art ; Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, 2003., 2003.
Kara Walker is one of my favorite contemporary artist at this very moment. Much of her work is very graphic, fugitively and literally. Although born in California, Kara Walker grew up in Stone Mountain, Georgia. Walker’s can be seen as very controversial, dealing with many issues of race, female gender, identity and violence in the post-colonial history of America. She likes to play on the stereotype of the African-American representation. Her work is narrative based, historical representations of something very South. Her work expresses the story of slavery and in a very disturbing way, it’s aggression and cruelty yet she builds humor into the narrative as well. She creates a caricature of stereotypical slave womanhood. In her series Do You Want Cream in Your Coffee and Chocolate in Your Milk?, the artist addresses a diary-like reaction to these stereotypes and criticism. Through her use of watercolor plays on this Negress caricature. Although her imagery is can border bizarre it addresses the violent ways in the issues of her race and her gender.
Walker’s unique style and approach to art helps me visually realize what women in bondage, like that of 4th my great-grandmother, experienced in the post-colonial and Antebellum South. Abuse and Sexual violence was very much perpetrated against enslaved women. Their bodies were exploited for slavery; used for the extreme physical and brutal activity of the fields and used for the reproductive labor of baring child to work them. Rape by the master reduced these women to mere biological objects, blocking her resistance and going in for the assualt. I believe the traumatic oredeal of being an enslaved women, may have drove my ancestor to escape the grasp of her master.
“On My Way to Calvary”
exploring the southern baptist church and its role in my family’s community
Boles, John B. Black Southerners, 1619–1869. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 2015. Web. 14th February 2017.
Faith and religion has always been a cornerstone in southern black identity. The church can represent not only religion but the sense of community and home. For its practitioners, the black church was indeed “a rock in a weary land. hen I was little, I had an attraction to many aspects of going to church. “Yes, Lord,” “Have mercy, Lord,” and “Thank you Jesus!” These words of praise where all around me growing up; I learned to call on Jesus when ever the circumstances of life seem to hard to bear.My family instilled in me how essential spiritual guidance can be and the power that prayer has. They preached the importance of striving for a more profound faith and more righteous way of living in this world where one’s faith is treated daily.
Raised by Southern Black Women
a celebration of phenomanol women in my life; their history, their stuggles, and their strengths
Conklin, Nancy Faires., Brenda McCallum, and Marcia Wade. The Culture of Southern Black Women: Approaches and Materials. University, Ala. (P.O. Box 1391, University 35486): Archive of American Minority Cultures and Women Studies Program, University of Alabama, 1983. Print.
The black southern woman can be considered the backbone of the black family and the southern society. Athough these women still tended to the fields their main role and responsibility was taking care of the home, rearing up their children, cook and clean; a life centered on the domestic front.
Life on the Homestead
Falk, William W. Rooted in Place : Family and Belonging in a Southern Black Community. New Brunswick, N.J. : Rutgers University Press, c2004., 2004.
Franklin, John Hope and Loren Schweninger. In Search of the Promised Land : A Slave Family in the Old South. New York : Oxford University Press, 2006., 2006. New narratives in American history.
Kelsey, Carl. The Negro Farmer. Chicago: Printed and on sale by Jennings & Pye, 1903. Print.
Kennedy, Theodore R. You Gotta Deal With It: Black Family Relations in a Southern Community. New York: Oxford University Press, 1980. Print.
Race Relations
Lawton, Alexander Rudolf. The Negro in the South and Elsewhere: Annual Address to the Alumni Society of the University of Georgia. Athens, Ga.: Alumni Society of the University of Georgia, 1923. Print.
Boles, John B. Black Southerners, 1619–1869. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 2015. Web. 14th February 2017.
Being Black and being raised in the south, leaves you subject to discovering one’s identity and culture early and in defining ways. We learn that racism exists hand it has in historically apart of our southern society sense the docking of slaves ships in the early sixteenth century. The thought of race is instilled in your mind as a southern child because you learn that you skin tells a story of hard labor, struggle, pain, adversity and strength. We are a people of a distinct, tightly bond culture despite the struggles and oppression of our past. The culture of the Southern African American is built on foundations of distinction, loyalty, and resilience.
