1995, 48 x 72 x 2.5 inches overall width, depth and height. Angles measure 12.5, 37, and 51 inches unframed. Mixed media piece on found plywood, barn wood, stable roof tin, and tarpaper, a burlap cotton seed bag, new tin, paper, oil paint, acrylic paint and pencil. Suwanee, Georgia studio.

I had moved outside of Atlanta, Georgia, a year before creating this piece representing the city’s past, and as it turned out when speaking to some younger local folks and hearing their attitude and perspectives, it revealed that the mindset still exists. It consists of copies of historical photos, with the silhouettes of the black child (using tarpaper as in the Disney film “South of the South” 1949, to represent the “tar baby”) crossing backwards in time to the plantation scene photo at the top of the piece also on tar paper. The toddler images holding hands represent going backwards, from equality under the law, with the white one, to traveling back to a planation community taken from a history book. Everything in this piece—from the genuine cotton seed sack, to the cotton gauze, and various other found objects—is used to portray the history that was addressed by the law, but has not yet been implemented, nor accepted, by the entire population.

Original available, priced at $21,000USD

If interested in purchasing this original artwork or a custom print, please feel free to reach out to me, here.