Textile Objects
My Mother’s Dolls. The artists’ dolls, cotton with painted features, 2021.
My Mother’s Dolls
I played with these dolls as a child and now they lie together on an antique bed. The black doll stares straight ahead; the white doll looks away, eyes averted.
The Foundation, Stitching on found linen, 2022.
The Foundation
Images of the outbuildings of Alpine, a plantation house in Talladega County belonging to Wallace kith, were drawn from a HABS archival photograph and embroidered on found household linen. A circle of green chain stitches and one of dashed lines circle them. The text, The Foundation, alludes to the fact that the enslaved for the basis for planters’ lives and livelihoods.
From Pride to Shame, Cyanotype on fabric, stitching on found household linen, 2022.
From Pride to Shame
Cyanotype images of screen shots from Birth of a Nation are stitched over with x’s on found household linen. The title From Pride to Shame reflects my feelings from childhood pride that Henry Walthall who played the Colonel Ben Cameron in Birth of a Nation was my grandfather’s cousin and brought Hollywood stars to visit the Wallace House in the early 20th century. Shame came from my learning that this film, with sordid racist scenes, led to the rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan.