That Place Print Series

That place refers to Klein, established by my great-great grandfather when he settled in Alabama and completed in 1841.  My family enslaved about 100 people on this cotton plantation, some of whom made the bricks, cut the timber, and built the house..  I spent my childhood summers here with my grandmother. It has been the focus of my exploration of this fraught heritage and the central element of our reimagining to create a future shared by all descendants of the place, of those who were enslaved and the enslavers. In this series, I explore the nature of the house’s past, particularly as it relates to cotton, and of my relationship to it. 

Cotton Economy

Cotton Economy is a hand cut pigment ink jet print in which elements within a line drawing of the house are cut out to reveal a cotton boll pattern underneath. The cotton bolls exist both outside and inside the house and are the ground on which it exists.

The Returning

In The Returning, ghostly dark salmon colored figures derived from Dorothea Lang’s 1937 Cotton Hoers, Mississippi drift toward and perhaps into the house. They cross the front yard of cotton with hoes up. Could they be returning to take their house back? Their descendants are now entering the house to create a new narrative around race and ownership.

Choked on Cotton: the next generation

Pink hands with a cotton boll pattern menacingly come towards each other over a new generation of children playing in front of the house. The older girl holds her cell phone. All are unaware of what may soon envelope them. Will they carry the burden of the cotton economy?