“Jail Bird/Free Bird: Wrong Man…Again”
60”x 90”
Dallas Love Field Black History Month Exhibition  February 2020

“Jail Bird is a term that has always been used to demean and diminish the lives of the incarcerated, whether wrongly or justly. It is a media term that has also been applied to newspaper and television coverage. Incarceration has never meant an association with dues being paid and a Police declaration is often a lifetime crime association. For the African-American community the systemic use of criminalization has not been diminished by proven wrongful extra judicial imprisonment and over policing. This piece speaks to the wrongful incarceration and judicial reforms that have recently reversed multiple decades of community separation and stigmatization. Unfortunately unknown numbers of innocent African American men have died during imprisonment and some have already faced a death penalty. The images on the quilted work are birds in flight and the mythical rising Phoenix. The bottom of the piece features images of White females, and a loose panel displaying the most often used tactics to get a false confession. Most often these men are accused of rape against White women.

“He Spit His Whole Chew Across My New Dress”  19”x 32”
Hecho En Dallas 2019 Annual Juried Exhibition Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs

“He Spit His Whole Chew Across My New Dress” is a narrative fabric art piece designed on a girl’s dress and using an iron dress frame to represent both family and racial restraint. The piece is from a family story shared about the 1942 events in a small Texas town when a 8 year old Black girl wore a new dress into town on a Sunday afternoon and a White citizen, playing checkers with other men on the porch of the General Store, waited for her to pass and spewed his mouthful of tobacco across her dress.

There are multiple effects of the racial event: The spitting event and racial ridicule of the man against a Black child; the girl’s rush home to get her father; A fight between her parents about his returning to town to confront a White man over a silly dress; and the resulting breaking up of the family over the incident. The subject is rarely approached regarding how the family unit is able to survive racial oppression.

“The Green Book Travel Quilt”  40”x 82”
Oak Cliff Cultural Center  2019  “Written & Witnessed: Jas Mardis and Andrea Totsen”

The recent movie brought forth many discussions about the legendary travel guide for African Americans. For my fabric art piece I used the approach of discovery and memory as my focus.

The annual book offered so much more than just US travel and presented various opportunities to study art, cooking and such around the World. I was able to utilize actual family and found photographs of Black Travelers on ships and by automobile. The piece also features original poetry and advertisements to bring the developed concept of the travel guide into reality. Another facet of that reality is displayed on the burlap edge of the piece with reproductions of the racial segregation signs.
The base of the piece is a green diamond pattern curtain to represent the underlying theme/concept of wanting the feeling of Home while traveling. That facet is further displayed in the use of a doily/table runner with the travel States positioned like guests.

“Am I Human to you, Yet?: The Return of the African Dodger” 60” x 90”
 Holocaust Museum of Houston , September 30-December 31, 2016. ”Genocide: Man’s Inhumanity to Mankind”

“Am I human to You, Yet” is a signature piece that examines a real world, 50 year event that permeated carnivals and fairs around the US, A game called The African Dodger and sometimes named, Kill The Nigger Baby, used a Black man with his head pushed thru the center hole of a large bullseye. It was always a Black Man and it was always just his head with no protection from his hands. He was positioned at the end of a 40-60 yard booth where gamers paid five cent for three balls and tried to hit his head. It was so popular that the throwing game appears in cartoons, movies and was a tabletop game.

The “game” was the subject of Congressional hearings and Scientific examinations that declared the Negro’s head was not subject to the same pain concerns as Whites and that the Negro enjoyed pain to the head. Men were maimed and some reportedly died as a result of Baseball teams overtaking the booth and throwing balls at the same time. The game also affected the job opportunities for Black men when the Carnival came to town.

“To Whom Much is Given: Colonel Charles Young For Race & Country” 45” x 64”

Tarrant County College  June 2019 Juneteenth: 12 Freedoms Won- 1st Place Fabric Art

Col Charles Young was born into slavery but was brought into freedom by his Father’s clever hand. He excelled early at education and eventually grew to be a Cultural Hero of some regard and was known widely as he became one of few Black Americans to enter West Point and graduate. After Young it was nearly 40 years before another Black American would be allowed to enter that Military bastion. He would lead the earliest version of our National Park Service and excelled at improving and establishing practices. He was also the Ambassador to Haiti and his uplifting of Black Americans was something that touched my 1960’s birth generation to strive toward.

“The Gandy Dancer’s Song: Tell That Boy I said,  Sang Dirty”.  38” x 55”
500X Gallery September 2020 “ A Vivrant Thang: Black Artists in Dialogue

Gandy Dancers is s term used for the Railroad workers used throughout the United States. The job was primarily repairing the Railroad tracks that were moved and often dislodged under the weight of the material being removed for the building of America. The most often recalled action of the track men was using coordinated chanting and songs to bring their strength into a rhythmic alignment. Black men were well known to this work using an iron pole from the Gandy Company, hence the name. White Bosses were known to use the talents of their Negro workmen like the old Overseers and would require the chant leaders to “sang dirty’ as a way to speed up the work and be entertained.

The dynamics of this piece utilized strip quilting in my Grandmother’s style of quilting and appliqued in a round shape to suggest the Railroad. There are three singing images created on leather using pyrography or drawn with fire. The face is one man in three stages of the chant. The piece serves as a remembrance and a cultural appreciation.