Mural, A Celebration of Spring." Macon Terminal Station. 2018 Community grant project. Thoughts on International Women’s Day Last night I watched “This Changes Everything” a documentary about the underrepresentation of women in the filmmaking industry. I was already perturbed about how few of the new art acquisitions for major collections and museums are by women. (It's just 11% of all new acquisitions, in case you were wondering.) The film added to the fire. “Things are getting better,” I hear people say. But no, they aren’t. Women want to be equally valued and compensated for their work. And in most cases, they simply want to DO THEIR WORK. It isn’t too much to ask. It is literally the bare minimum. Today, someone shared an image of the mural I and community volunteers painted at a bus terminal station. The project was a turning point for me on so many levels. Many things still stand out about that experience, both good and bad. Let’s start with the bad
A lot of my work focuses on the lifespan of flowers. I call my cotton pieces “Needle Roses” because I know the crop’s history, how difficult it is to harvest by hand, along with a nod to its beautiful purple and pink blossoms that precede the pods of fluffy fiber. Although I grew up in a Southern town, it was surrounded by tobacco fields. I did not see a cotton field until after I'd left for college. It’s surprising to see an entirely white field in a countryside that never gets snow. The way it transforms the landscape is practically alien. When I showed my first cotton painting, I saw someone begin to tear up while looking at it. The tall blonde lady explained that her grandmother had died while picking cotton. I listened as she described what life was like for her family and how special her grandmother was to her and how she still feels the loss. Looking at my painting brought that all back to her. She hugged me and left. I felt like I had been turned upside down. I