The Plantation Approved Colors

As promised, here is the first piece of the new year. The Plantation series continues with the approved color palette(s). I have about 4 of these planned (so far) with two completed. I'll upload the other one later on in the week. This one obviously deals with the relations (many forced) slaveowners had with their slaves. As slaves were the property of the plantation owner, the rape of a black woman by whites was not considered a crime. First-generation children of mixed race were called mulattoes.

Plantation Palette (Sensual)

63" x 44"

Acrylic and gel transfer 

The following passages were taken from the critical essay "The Tragic Mulatto Myth" by Dr. David Pilgrim. To read the full essay, click here.

E.B. Reuter, an historian, wrote:

In slavery days, they (Mulattoes) were most frequently the trained servants and had the advantages of daily contact with cultured men and women. Many of them were free and so enjoyed whatever advantages went with that superior status. They were considered by the white people to be superior in intelligence to the black Negroes, and came to take great pride in the fact of their white blood....When possible, they formed a sort of mixed-blood caste and held themselves aloof from the black Negroes and the slaves of lower status.

Reuter's claim that mulattoes were held in higher regard and treated better than "pure Blacks" must be examined closely. American slavery lasted for more than two centuries; therefore, it is difficult to generalize about the institution. The interactions between slaveholder and slaves varied across decades--and from plantation to plantation. Nevertheless, there are clues regarding the status of mulattoes. In a variety of public statements and laws, the offspring of White-Black sexual relations were referred to as "mongrels" or "spurious." Also, these interracial children were always legally defined as pure Blacks, which was different from how they were handled in other New World countries. A slaveholder claimed that there was "not an old plantation in which the grandchildren of the owner [therefore mulattos] are not whipped in the field by his overseer." Further, it seems that mulatto women were sometimes targeted for sexual abuse. 

According to the historian J. C. Furnas, in some slave markets, mulattoes and quadroons brought higher prices, because of their use as sexual objects. Some slavers found dark skin vulgar and repulsive. The mulatto approximated the White ideal of female attractiveness. All slave women were vulnerable to being raped, but the mulatto afforded the slave owner the opportunity to rape, with impunity, a woman who was physically White (or near-White) but legally Black.

The mulatto woman was depicted as a seductress whose beauty drove White men to rape her. This is an obvious and flawed attempt to reconcile the prohibitions against miscegenation (interracial sexual relations) with the reality that Whites routinely used Blacks as sexual objects. One slaver noted, "There is not a likely looking girl in this State that is not the concubine of a White man...." Every mulatto was proof that the color line had been crossed. In this regard, mulattoes were symbols of rape and concubinage. Gary B. Nash summarized the slavery-era relationship between the rape of Black women, the handling of mulattoes, and White dominance:

Though skin color came to assume importance through generations of association with slavery, white colonists developed few qualms about intimate contact with black women. But raising the social status of those who labored at the bottom of society and who were defined as abysmally inferior was a matter of serious concern. It was resolved by insuring that the mulatto would not occupy a position midway between white and black. Any black blood classified a person as black; and to be black was to be a slave.... By prohibiting racial intermarriage, winking at interracial sex, and defining all mixed offspring as black, white society found the ideal answer to its labor needs, its extracurricular and inadmissible sexual desires, its compulsion to maintain its culture purebred, and the problem of maintaining, at least in theory, absolute social control.

George M. Fredrickson, author of The Black Image in the White Mind, claimed that many White Americans believed that mulattoes were a degenerate race because they had "White blood" which made them ambitious and power hungry combined with "Black blood" which made them animalistic and savage. The attributing of personality and morality traits to "blood" seems foolish today, but it was taken seriously in the past. Charles Carroll, author of The Negro a Beast (1900), described Blacks as apelike. Regarding mulattoes, the offspring of "unnatural relationships," they did not have "the right to live," because, Carroll said, they were the majority of rapists and killers. His claim was untrue but widely believed. In 1899 a southern White woman, L. H. Harris, wrote to the editor of the Independent that the "negro brute" who rapes White women was "nearly always a mulatto," with "enough white blood in him to replace native humility and cowardice with Caucasian audacity." Mulatto women were depicted as emotionally troubled seducers and mulatto men as power hungry criminals. Nowhere are these depictions more evident than in D. W. Griffith's film The Birth of a Nation (1915).

Back in the Saddle Again!

Been a long time, but I can assure you that the work and the posts are back. I rented the studio again and had to do some work in there to get it up to speed to start the creative process moving along. I had no need for a 50 foot wall so the space has been partitioned to create a pseudo gallery and a work / storage area. I'm still in the process of moving all of the work in there but am in no real hurry...it will accumulate over the next couple months - besides, I need something on my walls at home!

I've been feeling the itch and wanted to get back into it slowly. I actually finished two paintings this morning and will post them as soon as Rick Rhodes finishes photographing them. I will start on another early next week and will try to have that one done by the week's end. I'm still working on the Plantation series and the ideas are bursting forth so you know what that means - foolishness will ensure at a torrid pace. I have a feeling that this will be my most productive year ever and I have a list of stuff that I intend to to attack ferociously. So, if you are in the area, feel free to stop by - it will be my de facto home.

And the winner is....

During my last exhibition titled 'Subjective Perception' at the Ponder Fine Arts Gallery on the campus of Benedict College in Columbia, SC, I posed a question on my interactive 'painting' the 'Blackbored'. 

"Blackbored - Racialebra'

I posted a sign stating that any student who answered the question the most correctly would win a signed and framed poster of a piece of art. After reading half a dozen responses, the most correct was submitted by  Kennan Hutson.

"The noun 'nigger' is one of the most unique nouns I've known because it is more

than a title. The noun 'nigger' is a state of being, a mindset and a way of living,

a culture. At one point in time 'nigger' was defined as an ignorant person but now

many things have been attached. 'Nigger' has developed its own color, even entity,

and can only be determined by one's own perspective. Based on our society, to say

the word 'nigger' is immoral, but to kill one is tolerated. There is only one answer;

A 'nigger' is as valuable as it's influence. It is as powerful as the mind of its adversary

and is as helpful to a society as the weakest star in the midnight sky."

Well stated, my man. See America, there is a depth of knowledge and solemn contemplation on the part of our youth. Challenge them and they will rise! The real answer resides in Kennan's statement that it is immoral to say the word 'nigger' but killing one is tolerated. In today's politically correct society, we have placed greater value on words that on actual lives. This conundrum reminds me of the children's rhyme, 'Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me." Not these days. In our 24-hour  sound byte obsessed media market, where outrage is manufactured and manipulated to drive ratings to an audience that no longer cares to think for itself and has ceded moral authority to talking heads and pundits that have carved up and aim their subjective opinion (not objective journalism) at demographics that only fit their political ideology, its no wonder that the value of a human life has been eroded to the point that it now matches our limited attention spans. Kennan's right, the value of words lies in their power to influence. 

SERVICE is now on Quashie website

Hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday. I'm using the downtime to catch up with some work. I always wanted to have a single page on my site that showed the entire "Service" painting along with the bio's and events depicted in the entire piece. I'm finally on my way to doing just that and just launched the page. 

Now all you have to do is scroll the cursor over the faces and the shortened bios will pop up underneath. I'll be adding more info on each in the future as well as links to other sites that have far more info than I do on the individuals and events depicted. Select this link to view the page.

Since so many asked....

I have gotten many requests for posters of 'NUTS'. So here they are in two sizes - 16" x 20" and 20" x 30". Anyone who wants to order select the link below.

POSTER STORE

16" x 20"

20" x 30"

New Art - J. CROW Apparel Advertisements

Sorry about the disappearing act. As many of you know, I used to do some writing in Hollywood and they came calling again. There was some interest in a screenplay that I had written as well as pilot to a sit-com. I needed to take the time to do a polish on both and send them out to La-La land. Hopefully they will interest a few notable people and who knows, they may actually make it to the big and small screen, respectively - but I seriously doubt it. The odds are tremendously long for any such thing happening but you have to roll the dice and get it out there. After all, they won't get there if you write them. We'll see what happens.

In the meantime, back to the art. I finished a couple more pieces of the Plantation series - the somewhat misguided ad campaign for the equally misguided Jim Crow Apparel clothing line. I'm having so much fun with these.

This will be the last post until next year. I have some really nice work planned. I'm off to Florida to hang out with mom for Christmas. have a great holiday and please be safe if traveling!

J. CROW APPAREL - Branding Irony

acrylic and gel on birch panel

36" x 48"

J. CROW APPAREL - Stripes

acrylic and gel on birch panel

36" x 48"

Shameless Christmas Plug!

Want a great Christmas gift? How about a decent book? I wrote this last year and am working on a sequel (while the paint dries).

CLICK HERE TO ORDER

Blaccessories?

The latest installment of the Plantation series bounces back with another ad campaign for the Jim Crow (J. Crow) apparel line. The line is was inspired by the many 'celebrity' clothing lines that are targeted toward fans and their slice of demographics. I wondered why racists didn't have a mainstream clothing line and that led to the J. Crow apparel concept.

One of the more controversial practices that is fairly or unfairly (depending on your perspective) covered by the press is that of white celebrity parents adopting black babies. There are those that interpret the motivation as a deep seated guilt complex rather than an act of love, compassion and validation of the so-called 'post-racial' society. Many see it as a manipulation of the press considering that black celebrities who adopt black children are rarely given equal exposure. 

"Blaccessories"

48" x 72"

Mixed media

Regardless of your take, there is no doubt the discomfort is rooted in the memory of slavery. In slavery days, black babies were a thriving business. Strong slave women and men were labeled 'breeding stock' and forced to conceive to produce superior offspring that were used as laborers. Some women produced up to twenty for this purpose. Slave life was particularly hard and to replace their losses, women were expected to start having babies as early as thirteen and produce at least five by the age of twenty. Plantation owners promised women their freedom once they had produced fifteen children. Many slave owners purposely impregnated their female chattel (it wasn't considered rape because slaves weren't considered 'people' with rights, but property). One particular Virginia slave trader boasted that he had sold as many as 6,000 slave children in one year!

I found a wonderful article online that delved into the issue of black adoption by Hollywood celebrities. Article: Black Babies: Hollywood's Hottest Accessory?

New Art - Follow Me

The Plantation series rolls on with a screenshot of Harriett Tubman's Twitter homepage. The dots for this idea connected when a friend asked, via email, why I didn't have a Facebook account. "That way people could follow your art." Hmmmm. Followers. Isn't that what Twitter is for? And had it been available, who in slavery times would have needed a Twitter account? No one would would have had more followers than Harriett Tubman. From her own words, "I freed a thousand slaves. I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves." 

And yes, I actually opened a Twitter account for Harriett Tubman and HurryIt_UpMan is her profile name. She has yet to tweet anyone but already has one follower.

"Follow Me"

56" x 42"

acrylic on birch panel

Biography of Harriet Tubman

Harriet Ross Tubman (1822-1913). Born into slavery on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, Tubman gained international acclaim as an Underground Railroad operator, abolitionist, Civil War spy and nurse, suffragist, and humanitarian. After escaping from enslavement in 1849, Tubman dedicated herself to fighting for freedom, equality, and justice for the remainder of her long life, earning her the biblical name "Moses" and a place among the nation's most famous historical figures.

Originally named Araminta, or "Minty," Harriet Tubman was born in early 1822 on the plantation of Anthony Thompson, south of Madison in Dorchester County, Maryland. Tubman was the fifth of nine children of Harriet "Rit" Green and Benjamin Ross, both slaves. Edward Brodess, the stepson of Anthony Thompson, claimed ownership of Rit and her children through his mother Mary Pattison Brodess Thompson. Ben Ross, the slave of Anthony Thompson, was a timber inspector who supervised and managed a vast timbering operation on Thompson's land. The Ross's relatively stable family life on Thompson's plantation came to abrupt end sometime in late 1823 or early 1824 when Edward Brodess took Rit and her then five children, including Tubman, to his own farm in Bucktown, a small agricultural village ten miles to the east. Brodess often hired Tubman out to temporary masters, some who were cruel and negligent, while selling other members of her family illegally to out of state buyers, permanently fracturing her family.

Working as a field hand while a young teen, Tubman was nearly killed by a blow to her head from an iron weight, thrown by an angry overseer at another fleeing slave. The severe injury left her suffering from headaches, seizures and sleeping spells that plagued her for the rest of her life. During the late 1830s and early 1840s, Tubman worked for John T. Stewart, a Madison merchant and shipbuilder, bringing her back to the familial and social community near where her father lived and where she had been born. About 1844 she married a local free black named John Tubman, shedding her childhood name Minty in favor of Harriet.

On March 7, 1849, Edward Brodess died on his farm at Bucktown at the age of 47, leaving Tubman and her family at risk of being sold to settle Brodess's debts. In the late fall of 1849 Tubman took her own liberty. She tapped into an Underground Railroad that was already functioning well on the Eastern Shore: traveling by night, using the North Star and instructions from white and black helpers, she found her way to Philadelphia. She sought work as a domestic, saving her money to help the rest of her family escape. From 1850 to 1860, Tubman conducted between eleven and thirteen escape missions, bringing away approximately seventy individuals, including her brothers, parents, and other family and friends, while also giving instructions to approximately fifty more who found their way to freedom independently.

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 left most refugee slaves vulnerable to recapture, and many fled to the safety and protection of Canada. Indeed, Tubman brought many of her charges to St. Catharines, Ontario, where they settled into a growing community of freedom seekers. Her dangerous missions won the admiration of black and white abolitionists throughout the North who provided her with funds to continue her activities. In 1858, Tubman met with the legendary freedom fighter, John Brown, in her North Street home in St. Catharines. Impressed by his passion for ending slavery, she committed herself to helping him recruit former slaves to join him on his planned raid at Harper's Ferry, Va. Though she hoped to be at his side when the raid took place in October 1859, illness may have prevented her from joining him. In 1859, William Henry Seward, Lincoln's future Secretary of State, sold Tubman a home on the outskirts of Auburn, New York, where she eventually settled her aged parents and other family members. On her way to Boston in April 1860, Tubman became the heroine of the day when she helped rescue a fugitive slave, Charles Nalle, from the custody of United States Marshals charged with returning him to his Virginia master.

In early 1862, Tubman joined Northern abolitionists in support of Union activities at Port Royal, South Carolina. Throughout the Civil War she provided badly needed nursing care to black soldiers and hundreds of newly liberated slaves who crowded Union camps. Tubman's military service expanded to include spying and scouting behind Confederate lines. In early June 1863, she became the first woman to command an armed military raid when she guided Col. James Montgomery and his 2nd South Carolina black regiment up the Combahee River, routing out Confederate outposts, destroying stockpiles of cotton, food and weapons, and liberating over 700 slaves.

After the war, Tubman returned to Auburn, New York. There she began another career as a community activist, humanitarian, and suffragist. In 1869, Sarah Bradford published a short biography of Tubman called "Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman," bringing brief fame and financial relief to Tubman and her family. She married Nelson Davis, a veteran, that same year; her husband John Tubman had been killed in 1867 in Dorchester County, Maryland. She struggled financially the rest of her life, however. Denied her own military pension, she eventually received a widow's pension as the wife of Nelson Davis, and, later, a Civil War nurse's pension.

Her humanitarian work triumphed with the opening of the Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged, located on land abutting her own property in Auburn, which she successfully purchased by mortgage and then transferred to the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in 1903. Active in the suffrage movement since 1860, Tubman continued to appear at local and national suffrage conventions until the early 1900s. She died at the age of 91 on March 10, 1913 in Auburn, New York.

New Art - FledX

One more step towards the goal of completing 20 new pieces of art in the 'Plantation' series. FledX is a pure commercial parody that started out as UPS parody. The escaped slave in the box is named Henry Brown and since the UPS slogan is 'what can brown do for you' the obvious choice was UPS. But, I couldn't resist the synchronicity of Fled X seeing that Henry was fleeing slavery and the 'X' in the confederate flag is so prominent. This was a no-brainer.

"FledX"

acrylic and gel transfer on canvas

48" x 53"

Henry Brown's story:Henry was born into slavery in 1815 in Louisa County, Virginia. In 1830 he was sent to Richmond, Virginia to work in a tobacco factory where he met and married another slave, Nancy, and the couple had three children. Brown used his wages to pay Nancy's master for the time she spent caring for them. However, in 1848, his wife and children were sold to a slave trader and sent to North Carolina.

With the help of James C. A. Smith, and a sympathetic white storekeeper named Samuel Smith, Brown devised a plan to have himself shipped to a free state by Adams Express. Brown paid $86 (out of his savings of $166) to Smith, who contacted Philadelphia abolitionist James Miller McKim, who agreed to receive the box. Brown burned his hand with Oil of vitriol as an excuse for missing work.

During the trip, which began on March 23, 1849, Brown's box traveled by wagon, railroad, steamboat, wagon again, railroad, ferry, railroad, and finally delivery wagon. Several times during the 206 mile, 27-hour journey, carriers placed the box upside-down or handled it roughly, but Brown was able to remain still enough to avoid detection. The box containing Brown was received by McKim, and other members of the Philadelphia Vigilance Committee. When Brown was released, one of those present remembered his first words as "How do you do, gentlemen?" He then sang a Psalm he had previously selected for his moment of freedom.

Brown became a well-known speaker for the Anti-Slavery Society. He was bestowed the nickname of "Box" at a Boston antislavery convention in May 1849, and thereafter used the name Henry Box Brown. He published two versions of his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Henry Box Brown; first in Boston in 1849 and the second in England in 1851. Brown exhibited a moving panorama titled "Mirror of Slavery" in the northeastern United States until he was forced to move to England after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. Brown toured Britain with his antislavery panorama for the next 10 years, performing several hundred times a year and visiting virtually every town and city over that period. Brown stayed on the British show circuit for twenty-five years, until 1875. In the 1860s, he began performing as a mesmerist, and some time after that as a conjuror, under the show names Prof. H. Box Brown and the African Prince. Leaving his first wife and children in slavery (though he had the means to purchase their freedom); he married a second time, to a white British woman, and began a new family. In 1875, he returned to the U.S. with a family magic act. There is also a later report of the Brown Family Jubilee Singers. The cause and date of his death are unknown.