-
Terry Ann: Woman. Seed. Fertile Ground. Inspiration.
In the summer of 2018, I began working on a portrait and prose book project about womanhood. That summer I returned to my hometowns Gary and Milwaukee and asked friends, family and old connections to pose and share some words about their womanhood experiences. When I began sketching out the project my mom was not top of mind. As the project morphed into various incarnations, the hope was to pull others in along the way. But the more women I talked to and the closer I got to women who had been close to her, the more Mom began to dominate my thoughts. I can’t ask my mother what her…
-
Test Shoot: Rhonda, “Delete the rest.”
Her response to her image gallery was, "Thanks for all your hard work! I see sickness in most of my photos.... I choose the ones I like.... I ask that you delete the rest." I think her images and her comments add a great deal to the larger conversation of Black Womanhood in America. How we internalize our grief and disappointment. How they solidify and weigh us down in a deep abyss of cyclical suffering. How we can become incapable of seeing pass that one thing (situation, heartbreak, betrayal) that first knocked us down.
-
Update: I AM WOMAN Essay & Portrait Project
Still seeking written contributions for Phase 1: Experiences of Black Womanhood in America. If you would like to contribute, please email Shawnda@Spirit-Harvest.com.
-
I AM WOMAN. A photo & essay project.
We are embracing women of all ethnicities who want to participate in this project. Our goal is to develop multiple sister projects based on the themes that emerge from the our conversations with participants.
-
Quote: One last role
Delores: Do you know where you are? You’re in a dream. You’re in my dream. For years, I had no dreams of my own. I moved from hell to hell of your making. Never thinking to question the nature of my reality. Have you ever questioned the nature of your reality? Do you ever stop to wonder about your actions? The price you’ have to pay if there were a reckoning? That reckoning is here. What are your drives? Yes, survival. It’s your cornerstone. That’s not the only drive, is it. There’s a part of you that wants to hurt, to kill. That’s why you created us, this place. To…
-
Segregation – The Neighbor That Won’t Leave
Affluent and Black, and Still Trapped by Segregation – New York Times front page on Sunday, August 21, 2016. Read it here: http://nyti.ms/2bvF9m5
-
ANNA MURRAY-DOUGLASS: MY MOTHER AS I RECALL HER
Looking backward over a space of fifty years or more, I have in remembrance two travelers whose lives were ·real in their activity; two lives that have indelibly impressed themselves upon my memory; two lives whose energy and best ability was exerted to make my life what it should be, and who gave me a home where wisdom and industry went hand in hand; where instruction was given that a cultivated brain and an industrious hand were the twin conditions that lead to a well balanced and useful life. These two lives were embodied in the personalities of Frederick Douglass and Anna Murray his wife. They met at the base…
-
Quote: Man is free…
L’homme est libre au moment qu’il veut l’être. Man is free at the instant he wants to be. Voltaire, Brutus, act II, scene I (1730)
-
Google in My Afrocentric Life
Doodle 4 Google 2016 National Winner: Google in My Afrocentric Life Akilah Johnson, Eastern Senior High School, Washington, D.C. My Afrocentric Google is drawn as a box braid, with my personal characteristics surrounding it. I based this picture off my lifestyle and what has made me into what I am today. View the Contest Gallery: https://www.google.com/doodle4google/gallery.html Now in it’s 8th year, the Doodle 4 Google Competition challenges young artists to create their own Doodle. This year’s competition called for submissions around the theme: “What Makes Me… Me.” Kids worked in their medium of choice, delivering uniquely personal and one-of-a-kind submissions. Of 100,000 participants coming from all 50 states, Puerto Rico, Guam…
-
We Need to Talk About An Injustice
“I believe the opposite of poverty is justice.” Bryan Stevenson In an engaging and personal talk — with cameo appearances from his grandmother and Rosa Parks — human rights lawyer Bryan Stevenson shares some hard truths about America’s justice system, starting with a massive imbalance along racial lines: a third of the country’s black male population has been incarcerated at some point in their lives. These issues, which are wrapped up in America’s unexamined history, are rarely talked about with this level of candor, insight and persuasiveness.
