Yaller
Yallar. One of 3 Mixed Media Fiber Art Tapestries, Hand Woven.
On view now in Shadows of Inspiration, at Jackson County Arts Council, Sylva, NC.
This work is my art response to Shadows of Incarceration, the Cowee 19 Story, an exhibition at Mountain Heritage Center at Western Carolina University, Cullowhee, NC, that displayed vintage photographs of prisoners incarcerated during the era of railroads. Artists were invited to create works of art related to the exhibition.
In a quiet corner of the gallery one lone image of women called to me, "Black female incarcerated laborers on a prison farm in Georgia." c. 1880, from the Geprgia State Archives. The faded sepia photograph shows women in striped prison dresses with plows and horses under what is likely a punishing Georgia sun.
I created three individual tapestries, Yallar, Rosebary, and TurQ (see listings) to express the fate of women. What were their crimes other than easy targets of race and gender. Each one is comprised of my colorized versions of the original photo and replicas of confederate currencies, deconstructed and reconstructed in the weaving process.
I augmented each tapestry with sliced and dyed bits of real US one-hundred-dollar-bill currency (decommissioned). All of them are held together with woven cotton yarn.
Yaller: 19” x 19" $300.00
Rosebary: 16" x 17" $300.00 see listing
TurQ: 15" x 33" $350.00 see listing
